Milford House Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Milford Charter Township

In an area of expanding options, the Milford House isn't keeping up with the competition.

Part of a big line of restaurants, the Milford House is part of one of the biggest, locally-owned franchises in the area. Other related locations include Gus' Carry Out, Highland House, Fenton House and Tomato Bros. Most locations are known for their traditional Italian cuisine, with great bread sticks and pretty decent ribs. Milford House offerings lean a touch more modern than the other locations.

Milford House is suffering from numerous issues. Tonight provided good examples of those issues. Starting with number one...

Space - Nestled, alright stuffed, into the corner of a busy downtown intersection of Milford, the Milford House is plagued with low square footage. That in itself isn't an issue. However, it is an issue when you have far too many tables for the size of your establishment. Where I was sat, I got bumped by patrons and wait staff at least ten times. Trays of food passing overhead regularly. In the entrance way, you're greeted by tables too close to the door, a tiny hostess booth, and no waiting area. People were strewn throughout the restaurant waiting for tables.

Number two, quality of food - By no means is the food awful, but the quality of food in terms of price is fairly middling to unacceptable. From tonight's dinner, examples abound. My wife's steak was merely cooked beef. No seasoning, not expertly cooked. Her salad was lettuce, one silver-dollar sized cucumber slice and two tiny tomato slices. My hush puppies were overly seasoned with excessive rosemary. It was literally all you could taste. They were far too large, which meant in insides weren't cooked thru. My French Onion soup broth and cheese were tasty, but the bread was introduced to the broth two or three hours earlier, making it more of a porridge. Kids meals were okay, for kids meals.

Which leads to number three, price - $66 total, before tip. I can get out of steakhouses for under $66 for a family of four, get more food and get better food. $7 for kids meals?! That's easily the highest price I've ever paid for kid's meals outside of theme parks. $19 for a steak you could compare to a diner steak, not to mention the quarter of a $.59 lettuce head salad they offered for $4.

Lastly four, timely service - Our waitresses' name was Regan. She was a delight. Friendly, apologetic, filled glasses promptly, took every request with grace and quickness, but she was clearly overworked and frazzled (seriously, if anyone in area needs a quality server, lookup Regan at the Milford House). However, the tiny kitchen was way behind. It took 65 minutes from ordering to receive our food.

Without major changes, we...

So my girlfriend is a celiac. She cannot have gluten or she will get very sick. Most restaurants that have gluten free options will put "if you are a celiac, you may not want to chance it". This is in case of cross contamination. Some places do take the chance with a gluten free menu and are super careful. So we saw that they did have a gluten free menu. The waiter was a nice guy, but really didn't understand being gluten free. We also asked to speak to a manager first and was told it would be easy to talk to a waiter. WARNING. They say they have gluten free options, but they do not care and there is cross contamination. My girlfriend ordered ribs that the chefs said were gluten free. She did not get fries because they were in a fryer with other gluten items (but they say they are gluten free) The wait for the food was slow. When it came out, the ribs had the fries right on them. The waiter asked the chef if that was ok and he said she "should" be ok. SHOULD? If you were allergic to nuts, would you eat almonds if someone said you "should" be ok. After that I was fed up and said I am not eating the food and we should leave. The manager came over and at first was nice. I explained to her she should put "not celiac friendly" on the menu to help other people and to save their ass from being sued. She admitted that they cater to the 99.9% who eat gluten free as a fad. Now I guess she failed math because more than 1% of the world are celiacs. I told her I didn't want my food because I am not going to eat and leave my girlfriend with nothing. Even after that she said she would box it up. I told her I am very sorry but I can't pay for this because of the lack of knowledge and respect to my girlfriend. She then turned into a 3 year old with a dirty diaper and stormed away pissed. Oh I am sorry, you're pissed? You missed out on 20.00? My girlfriend could of went to the hospital because of your laziness, lack of knowledge and not using proper wording on your menu. The waiter came back said everything was on them and that he is so sorry. He had bigger balls than the manager of the place. Sad. Just sad. If the menu said they were not celiac friendly I would of went in and talked to the manger like an adult and probably decided the place was not for us, but thanks anyway. But saying you have s full gluten free menu is false advertisement to all celiacs or people allergic to wheat. I hope someone reads this and realizes what could of happened. And I am sorry but I won't be back because of the disrespect the manager gave...

I'm having a hard time deciding how to rate Milford House.

In the 2+ years I've been in Milford, I've eaten at Milford House a handful of times, and generally it's been a good experience. The waitstaff is always super friendly and helpful with food selection suggestions. Milford House offers a bar with a wide variety and they're happy to make you mixed drinks. Their sandwiches and burgers are solid, and there's a good selection of entree options too.

As mentioned previously, generally speaking, every experience I've had at Milford house has been good, however recently I had a such a glaringly bad experience, it's tainted my view of Milford House. I'd usually get a sandwich or burger when going to Milford House, but I decided to be adventurous one day for lunch and ordered the Perch entree. I asked for it with the seasonal vegetable, which happened to be Zucchini. When it arrived, it generally looked palatable and I was interested to see how it'd taste. I took the first bite of the Perch and it took all my effort to not make an extremely grossed out face to my coworkers. The Perch dish at Milford House may be the worst dish I've eaten at a restaurant in my entire life. I'm usually someone who has no problem clearing his plate and I couldn't make it past 2 bites of the Perch, and had to graze on the Zucchini as the main course of the meal that day. Ultimately that wasn't much help either as the Zucchini had been tainted by the same sauce that the Perch was in, and was also really unappetizing as a result. I'm sure I got some odd looks from coworkers as I'd ordered a more expensive entree and barely ate any of it, but I was legitimately worried about my ability to stomach it if I tried to eat any more. It's unfortunate that this one dish has turned me away from Milford house so much, but it made a severely negative impact on me.

Keto/ Low-Carb Folks, I'd recommend getting a salad or burger without the bun. If there's an entree that works for you, try it out! Just stay away...