Wood + Paddle — Restaurant in Minneapolis

I ate here twice during my stay at the hotel. For dinner, I ordered pasta with grilled chicken, and the chicken cost an additional $9. The pasta arrived without the chicken, but the server did not check in with the table until we had finished our meals. They took the cost of the chicken off of the final bill, but still, the server should've asked if everything arrived correctly at some point. He was not visible for most of the meal and was not able to be called over. The pasta was also very bland and needed a ton of salt and pepper. The drink I ordered was good but definitely overpriced at $14 for a standard drink.

The second time I ate here was worse. We wanted a quick breakfast before we left the hotel. It took two hours. My wife asked for maple butter on the side to go with her waffle. The server yelled, literally shouted, that he's received way too many special requests today (it was 9am). When my wife tried to laugh it off, because he must've been joking right, the waiter literally told her "Shut up", grabbed her menu as she was still ordering, and hit her in the head with it. If he thought that was funny, it completely missed the mark, because the four of us were furious. After all that, she did not get the side of maple butter. The waiter was yelling at other patrons as well. I overhead him shouting "Don't you know how to order!" to a lady while her husband rubbed his head with a visible headache from the server's behavior. Finally, when we received the bill, it was for an entirely incorrect set of meals. Our server was busy harassing the previously described table for 10 minutes, so we talked to an employee wearing a suit, seemingly some sort of management, and he asked if this bill was cheaper than what we ordered, and if so to simply pay it. What?! Then he gave the bill back to our server, who walked around with it for 10 minutes and then gave it back to us saying it was our bill. It was extremely frustrating because we had now been waiting for more than 20 minutes to pay our bill. He argued with us about it and then came back around 10 minutes later with the correct bill. To be verbally insulted, hit with a menu, encouraged to pay the wrong bill, brought the same faulty bill several times, and not even receive the food/side we wanted was bad enough, but waiting 30+ minutes for the bill to be corrected was a final kick in the stomach. And this was a different server than from the previous meal, which also...

I’m baffled TripAdvisor ranks this restaurant as #2 restaurant in Minneapolis. After waiting at the unattended hostess stand for 10 minutes, we were finally greeted and seated. Our server was abysmal: never introduced himself, was clueless on menu items, disappeared often, etc. I asked “what are fried sunnies?” to which he answered “sunfish.” One word answer. We had to look it up ourselves. Even 2 more words would’ve been helpful: “local whitefish.” He was clearly uninterested in helping us. We felt like a massive inconvenience for him. I ordered a dirty martini, to which he asked “on the rocks or up?” I said I didn’t understand the question, and he blankly stared at me instead of offering any helpful clarification. We ordered cheese curds (excellent), fried sunnies (meh), my 13-year-old son didn’t like his French dip as it had horseradish on the sandwich. A decent server would’ve asked to ensure a child wanted horseradish on the sandwich; a proactive server would’ve had it put on the side. I ordered Parmesan walleye, which was bland, somewhat fishy and otherwise flavorless (although the wild rice was great). My husband ordered duck confit stroganoff, which was flavorful and unique. Check was $154 without tip for 2 small plates, 3 entrees and 2 drinks ($12 each). We didn’t finish a single entree; I barely touched my walleye. When we declined to-go boxes for our rather full plates, the server didn’t bother to ask if everything tasted okay. Zero concern. Minneapolis has many excellent restaurants. Go...

We ate here before seeing The Lion King at the Orpheum. It's a nice walking distance from the theater and a nice atmosphere for a dressed up, special night out.

Service: Outstanding. Our server, Mario, was spectacular. Attentive and personable. He was also kind enough to give us happy hour prices even though we technically weren't sitting on the happy hour side of the curtain. That meant a lot to us as we didn't see anything on line stating these prices only applied to certain tables and was a factor in our choosing this eatery.

Food: Delicious. I appreciated the many gluten free options. I had cornbread and the stuffed mushrooms. The cornbread was amazing! I shared it with my husband but could have easily eaten it all myself. The mushrooms were a bit heavy on the garlic. I would have preferred that flavor to have been a bit more subtle. My husband had the bison burger and enjoyed it. It's spicy but as he described, "a nice level of heat." We had the vanilla bean creme brulee, and it was a wonderfully smooth, flavorful custard.

Drinks: Good. I had a glass of Chateau St Michelle Riesling, a wine I choose often so I knew I'd like it. My husband had the Old Fashioned, which was made with Maker's Mark and just isn't his favorite alcohol, but that's not really the restaurant's fault as he did choose to order it.

Overall, this is a place we'd visit again the next time we're in the...