Midland Brewing Company — Restaurant in Midland

It truly hurts my heart to do this, as both a homebrewer & a local, but I have never been treated so poorly by an establishment I frequented. We know the guys in the brew house & the brothers, & have been excitedly waiting for things to improve over the last few years. However, you can never find the good beers on tap, the food is meh or miss, and the service has become so terrible that we finally gave up.... It was a Sunday around 3p, after a Loon's baseball game. Per MBC's request, we tried to make a reservation online for our party of 8 but their website topped out at 5. We went inside to see if we could make a reservation in person - the young kid behind the counter made a snarky comment about our inability to figure it out online. I showed him that the website didn't allow for it, no apology for the jab. There was only one party inside & one outside. We asked if we could sit at the big open table outside since we had 2 little ones with us. The kid asked the outside waitress if she would take a group of 8 & she said 'no, she just started her shift and wasn't up to it'. Whatever, we agreed to sit at a booth inside instead. This was after a second host made a ridiculous comment about our polite rejection of the metal hightop because we had 2 littles. We'd been seated, handed menus, and offered waters while we looked over the beer and food menu. Shortly after, we were told that because we had a party of 8 that we would be rung up on a single bill. Silly but not uncommon.. but we were told we wouldn't be able to split that bill between 4 equal payments. We were told we'd have to sit at separate tables if we wanted to split up payment. We agreed to split up between 2 booths since there was another one nearby. Then we were told that wasn't ok either, that we'd have to sit at opposite ends of the restaurant. Seriously?! We've got 4 couples here - coming from as far at Alpena, GR, and Stanton to meet up for beers & dinner after a baseball game. There was half a dozen waitresses standing around, doing not a single thing other than gossip and play with their phones, and literally 1 other party (2 adults) inside the entire place. We couldn't have made to feel more unwanted. Our waters hadn't come yet so we just thanked them for their time & left. Whichcraft happliy sat us anywhere we wanted, happily provided bills for 4 couples, and had an excellent selection...

Atrocious.

It looks nice and the fries are good.

When our waiter came to ask about drinks, he only asked two (of four of us, ages 22, 45, 68, and 70) what we wanted to drink. When he came back with the drinks for two, he spilled a fair amount of one on my leg. No apology. No cleaning. Just let my socks and the floor soak with beer.

The menu is very awkward and unruly. Spicy peanut butter burger? Onions in mac and cheese? Peanuts on bratwurst?

My own order was a simple cheeseburger with nothing but ketchup. I don't terribly mind putting the ketchup on, myself, but​ a small cup to share between the burger and fries? For crying out loud.

The fries were as beautiful as they were delicious. Fantastic! The burger tasted like any old burger from a fast food restaurant, but I've never had any sandwich sloppier than that. It took a lot of effort to hold it together (and the pick holding it together was absurdly tall, so I removed it). Despite an overflow of grease, it was also very dry and difficult to swallow. Better yet, it (with a "cheese skirt") was placed in a tray for fries. It did not fit. Very unhelpful in light of the sloppiness.

It took me TWO hand washings to lose the grease on my hands when I was finished. My fingers pruned from the abundance of grease.

The acoustics of the stone walls in a small space made the room stupidly loud for no reason.

The restrooms are pretty relaxing, though, so that's nice. The paper towels in there are quite satisfying, too. That's probably where the funds prior to...

Second update: giftcard never recieved, even with yet another call in to check on the situation.......incredibly disappointing. Update: We continued to call, and left a voicemail to get a refund. No return call ever occurred. Finally got through and refund was attempted, only to be told the refund would not process and we would get a giftcard instead..........not exactly a fix as it means we have to return and spend more money there 🤨 Box Mac and cheese ($6) was confirmed by employee. So disappointing.

Original post: I hate that I have to leave this review. We moved to Midland over a year ago and have had a couple of great experiences with MBC. Our most recent experience was extremely disappointing. Children's Mac and cheese was almost $6, and was Kraft Mac and Cheese in presentation. It was also spoiled, with a strong sour flavor and smell. The fish in the fish and chips meal was fantastic. The fries are usually out of this world good, and tonight they tasted of old oil. We had a large part of our order missing, as well. I ordered my go-to logger burger cooked to medium. It was very overcooked with char bits all over. I will say it was still good, despite these factors. We called multiple times with no success in getting in contact with anyone. It was pretty disappointing, as they have come to be a new favorite of ours. No excuse for spoiled food. Especially for children. We would appreciate a refund for the missing item and for the spoiled children's meal. We have left a voicemail with...