Trip's Tree House Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Michigan City

I realize that this is a new business and I heard the owner just had a baby. Congratulations. I often think that a restaurant is only as good as it’s least busy night. Came here on a Monday night. Tough night when next door they have a burger special on Mondays. I know they didn’t want to spend much money on the renovation and I’m sure the clock was ticking to get open by 4th of July week. But there are some structural things that need fixing and a few menu items that could use some tweaking. The entry is not well defined. An operable entry door needs to open out. But when there is no landing or awning this becomes awkward. Having steps up, no landing and a door that opens out gives a bad first impression. You get jammed up trying to open the door and navigate the last step. A handicap ramp could mitigate that problem or make the formal entry on the left set of doors. Then as soon as you enter you are confronted by the bathroom doors. The front coverage was non existent and a hostess finally showed up with dishes in her hands. Sure it was near the end of the night and they may have been short staffed. Asked for seats outside and had the same door experience. The door opens out in the back with no landing, so if you’re not paying attention you could easily fall down the stairs. Outside there was one other family. No real ambiance. Candles would have helped. Overheard lights were drowned out by the lights on the building. Music was way way too loud. I couldn’t hear my spouse. After ordering I went to wash my hands and the bathroom reeked. Once again it was the end of the night. When we were leaving they were cleaning it. (A horrible job I wouldn’t want to ask any employee to do) Ordered a salad to split. Asked for ranch. Salad came and she only brought one plate. Should have brought two. No dressing. Had to ask for it. No salt and pepper on the table. My wife had ordered a wine and it was undrinkable. Either it had been open for a long time or it was just bad (I’m not the expert but I believe her when she says it was undrinkable) It was taken off the bill. The mains came. My wife ordered the beef sandwich. Barely any beef and it was not very warm. No au jus, peppers or giardiniera. I looked for something interesting to see what the kitchen was capable of. Chose the chicken pesto linguine. Wasn’t in the mood for a burger or pizza. The pesto was great. The chicken was cold. I’m sure they pre-cook filets but it needed to be reheated and not with a microwave. When a server comes back around and sees that a sandwich was barely touched they should ask if the meal was ok. They didn’t. I’ll be back, but I’ll wait until they figure out...

There was no hostess at the door when we came in. We stood for several minutes and finally walked inside to the bar area and they turned us around and told us that we had to go and let the hostess seat us. We waited another few minutes to be seated. While outside the waitress, took our order Food came rather quickly, but the appetizer came with the food. That was not a good thing wanted that before the meal. Ordered a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. There was no green peppers on it and no onion literally maybe two slithers of onion. tried to get the waitress attention but I had to get up and find her to tell her that there was nothing on the sandwich she said she would have to ask, I waited another 15 more minutes for her to come back to the table asked her again, but it was too late. I just ate the meat out of it it was very bland tasting. she said she had forgot said that maybe they ran out of peppers and onions but she wasn’t sure. I told her if that was the point I wouldn’t have ordered the sandwich because the whole point was to get that flavor with the onion and pepper. My friend got a hamburger it had no seasoning at all, the food was very bland, including my Philly cheesesteak Was never asked if my friend wanted ketchup or mustard for the hamburger all around just poor Service. when she brought the check, I was paying cash. Even though the service and food was not good I left a tip way above average. She never came to came to collect it when we were walking out the girl was standing at the door talking. I told her I left the money on the table and she was just like OK. I’m glad I wasn’t paying with a card because I don’t know how long we would’ve been waiting for her to come and do that. just wasn’t good service at all. It was not good very disappointed. I will not be returning back. Regret not going next-door to swing belly would’ve had better food...

Beware if you have allergies or dietary restrictions! My partner and I were in town and chose to have lunch at Trip’s Tree House because they advertised vegan options. We are both vegan and I have a severe dairy allergy. We ordered a pizza and told the server we want it totally vegan…and I specified: with vegan cheese, no parmesan or mozzarella cheese (looking back I wish I made a bigger deal about it and explained that I have an allergy). I was immediately suspicious when our pizza arrived because it didn’t look or smell like vegan cheese. I asked our server if she was sure they used vegan cheese on our pizza, and without a second thought she replied, YES! To their credit, it was delicious pizza. Unfortunately, not vegan. I only ate a few bites because I was still not convinced it was dairy free. It was way too stretchy. But I was still unsure so I didn’t say anything else to our server (besides, she had already dismissed my concerns). On our drive home to Michigan, I started experiencing my usual symptoms of swelling in my mouth, excessive saliva, extreme heartburn, and I was finally certain it was an allergic reaction. Even after taking medication, I was sick for the next 24 hours. To be fair, I know it’s a new restaurant and I believe our server was one of the hostesses. Just posting this so management knows to take dietary restrictions more seriously (and explain to their staff what “vegan” entails). A reminder if you have allergies, ALWAYS tell...