Highland House — Restaurant in Mequon

A horrific and horrible experience after 33 years of patronage to the Highland House. Our server Alexandria was rude and unengaged. We came in after just losing my only brother at 39 years old unexpectedly and it's my first time out to a restaurant to celebrate my best friend's breast cancer Pet Scan results coming back clear and her son's 16th birthday. After being in the hospitality industry for over 30 years I will say this was disturbing, however, credit needs to be given to genuinely nice people like Logan and Lauren. Lauren was especially kind taking my reservation letting her know I would like my server to accept my birthday candles for her son's birthday brownie and that I would be bringing my service dog that is certified by the state of Wisconsin. She never said there was ANY problem nor issue of any of my requests as I have brought my service dog NUMEROUS TIMES to the Highland House over the last 5 years with absolutely no problems. After we delivered our drink order to our "lovely" server the manager on duty came to our table RUDELY asking me "what type of actions does this dog serve for you ?" I was astonished. What if I had a disease or disorder that my party had no idea about such as seizures or a private medical issue that would've been embarrassing for me. I suffer from extreme panic anxiety disorder and depression as AGAIN my service pup is essential for me as he is trained to help me stay calm. What if I was with business colleagues or on a first date???? Horribly embarrassing. As I stated my little WELL BEHAVED SERVICE DOG is extremely docile and professionally trained. No barking, no begging for food, no defecation no nothing but being a certified service dog. Obviously, the Highland House is not service dog friendly as I ordered him an order of steamed vegetables as we are both vegetarian and they proceeded to say "you are able to retrieve the vegetables on your way out as you cannot feed you service dog at the table" not to mention that in the last 5 years he has always eaten not on the table, yet hand fed at the booth as I requested with no repercussions. I worked at a restaurant for 6 years that we welcomed service dogs and delivered them a water bowl and housemade treats for them. I was sooooo uncomfortable, however, I didn't want to ruin the celebration for my family/friends. Me and my party felt like we were a burden and EXTREMELY unwelcomed. Lastly, we were bewildered not understanding why chips and salsa were not delivered after our drink order was finally taken and we were told that now after over 30 years of being customers at this venue not to mention that I was a hostess and server in the past at the Highland House, now chips and salsa are now not complimentary. We asked why which is ridiculous and they said due to waste management as the restaurant industry has a ton of waste which is them making excuses for a cheap way of saving a buck. I will wholeheartedly say that this establishment ruined our night beyond words. I will completely agree with the gentleman with the unhappy review previous to mine, we are done with the Highland House. If you suffer from a disorder no MATTER WHAT IT IS and have a well trained and certified service dog please choose another venue to have a good experience. Definitely not here. So disappointing as after I spoke to Frank the GM I cried and had a panic attack as he was EXTREMELY RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL TO ME. Sooooo DONE!!! Lastly x2, I have my dinner party as witnesses and as I was leaving a lady and her husband witnessed this abusive and disgusting behavior and gave me their contact information as they have a daughter with a service dog and have had similar experiences. SO DISAPPOINTING...

Bland and boring

Service - 2 star acceptible, not special or lacking either. Had to ask for salt and pepper, i know it's small, but it should be automatic with food. Also had to ask twice for some bbq sauce for dipping, again not big, but thats why 3 and not 4 stars. Now why it goes down to 2. They had a free taco bar....they waited until after ording almost $30 of food, food i didn't enjoy, to tell us. Why wouldn't you just say "you know there's free tacos, right?" There certainly was plenty of opportunity since we spent 20 min looking at menus waiting for a friend to arrive. I guess you want the max bill for your tip. I was a waiter for a minute in high school, so i still gave about 20%, but...

Atmosphere - 4 star nice place to watch a game and they do jello shots for td's, fun croud. The theme is sort of Caribbean/Mexican, some nicely but also not really special in any way. The food is American and Mexican fare so it fits that, but it still felt kinda cheap. Just kinda felt like, "we gotta do something" of that makes sense. I give em 4 for trying and the fun of the game (if that wasn't why i was there it would also be a 3 star)

Food - 1 star Mozz sticks - made with wontons, not super common but not unusual. They are just so big you can only comfortably eat 1. The marinara sauce was absolutely flavorless and I'm sure NOT made in house. I can pull out a can of sauce from the grocery store would be just as good...or better. The cheese sticks had absolutely no seasoning, bland and boring. I know it's mozz sticks and that's what they were, but you are a professional kitchen, make it something i can't just go home and do myself with ease.

Hangover burger - oh, this was like a gut punch. I absolutely love a burger with an egg on it. The yoke gets all gooey and crates a luxurious sauce. Problem is... They broke the yoke cracking the egg and then proceeded to cook the heck out of it. It even had the brown crunchy ring it was so overcooked. It needed.the moisture, thing was quite dry. There was supposed to be some kind of house sauce on it, so little made it on that it just soaked in the bun and totally disappeared, or they just forgot it. The bacon is also overcooked and overly chewy. The beef was actually good, cooked correctly with a nice grilled flavor you dont get everywhere. Again, notice a theme here, there was no seasoning. A little s&p goes a long way all you cooks, using that term intentionally because there is no chef here that i can tell.

Fries - the saving grace of the food, and that's kinda lame of you think about it a little. Crispy, fluffy, lite, very enjoyable. Although, also NO SEASONING.

I know the average doesn't equal 1 star, but the food was so bland, so boring, so underwhelming that it rules the day. Between that and not letting us know they had FREE food instead of letting me buy over 25 dollars in food....like i would have tipped huge for saving...

I went to Highland House on August 6 and about noon for lunch. I was with two other people and the overall service that we got first as a disabled individual. I had to go in through the site entrance, walk completely through the entire restaurant to then walk to the back of the restaurant and not even get a table appropriate for me. We ordered our food and everything you know beyond being inappropriately seated everything was going good. I mean up until this point our our service was you know but the atmosphere was good. Things were good until things got real ugly. The first ugly thing that happened was in trying to order two side flour tortillas we were told that is not possible by someone named Nate, who obviously didn’t know what he was talking about, because the manager Frank then proceeded to tell us that we could have gotten two side flour tortillas. My lunch was brought out to me and there was no knife to cut my burger in half and it was gigantic as I ordered the hangover burger however it’s had to sit somewhere for a while because the cheese was like no longer melted like it had gone back to being a brick of cheese and the jalapeño on the top was not good. So I ended up having to wait 10 maybe 12 minutes for our server to come back out, with other peoples food, but no knife as she wasn’t even checking up on if everything was okay. Then when I asked for the knife again, she then told me that she had forgotten I needed the knife. I then asked for am manager. This is when I met manager Frank. He apologized for our problems prior to hearing us tell him our problems. After hearing the events we’ve had, he apologized again, said they took my lunch off the receipt. Then proceeded to say we should of asked for kitchen staff to cut my burger before serving it. Then said that with regards to ordering two side flour tortillas. That kitchen staff wouldn’t cut the tortillas cut the tortillas but, we would get what we wanted. I was shocked to learn manager frank blamed us for our service. When asked directly, are you blaming me for your service today, he started to back pedal. Then we were not given directions on how to return to the handicapped exit, walked past two dinning areas, the bar, 3 more dining areas to get to the handicapped exit. Lastly I’ve gone to this same...