Duke's on 7 — Restaurant in Minnetonka

**Update: management has not reached back out to me.

I think Dukes has great opportunity. The restaurant is beautiful and the patio is incredible. Unfortunately what I’ve experienced in looks overcompensated in what I experienced in service. I’ve been to Dukes 3 times now. The first time I had a party of 3. It was on a Monday evening and the house looked 50% busy. We waited 75 minutes for our food. The waitress was nice and apologetic but it’s always frustrating. I’ve also notified the waitress that our food was extremely salty and she said she’ll relay the message but changed nothing. I’ve also notified her that the Phuket bowl was from my culture and the recipe is not accurate, but it seems like nothing had changed. The 2nd visit, I also waited around 75 minutes for my food and our waitress accidentally spilled water on my guest. Mistakes happen but she just said oops, threw up a towel and walked away. Finally, this third time, was by far our worst. We visited this past Friday night, the patio looked nearly 75% full. Our waitress took about 15 minutes to get us our initial waters with no ice? We ordered the Riblets and Bone in wings for appetizer. Delicious! However, it took about 30m to make, and the runner did not give us appetizer plates. Our server was no where to be found for about 10 minutes and the waitress to our table next to us was just chit chatting the entire time with what seems to be her high school friends. Finally, I decided to get up and go get appetizer plates and was helped by a nice gentleman. For food, we ordered again the Phuket Bowl( in hopes for an improved recipe), Poke Bowl, and Yum Yum. The Phuket was: same recipe, disappointing, not authentic and the chicken is always extremely dry (they slice too thin). The Poke Bowl: we ordered asking for raw salmon, was delivered cook salmon. We asked for salmon to be taken back or off our bill and was told they can’t accommodate the request. The Yum Yum Bowl: the ingredients are the fine. The issue is that they are using a super thin and cheap cut of steak. Therefore, similar problem with Phuket bowl, the meat dries out so much(this is simple cooking 101 btw). Along with the disappointing entrees, our server did not check in on us once (empty drinks, no water, etc). When finally checked in, she presented the bill around 9pm as if she was rushing the close. Honestly, we’ve spent around $150+ on 3 people the last few times, I can spend a similar amount at Fogo De Chao for better food and better customer service. My advice is to reconsider your recipes, initiate a better onboarding process for your servers to align to customer service expectations, and truly re-evaluate your menu prices from a customer integrity standpoint, especially when using super cheap cuts of meat. 2/5. Would love to visit again if management is interested in making...

In a word - Yikes. This place came with mixed reviews from friends and family in the community and honestly we were kind of excited to give it a try. Unfortunately at the end we were also excited to leave.

Atmosphere - meh. The fireplace was nice but there were no tables near it that could see it... a missed opportunity for a couple of very nice tables for people to enjoy but whatever. The rest of it was just meh. They were playing house techno music at 6pm on a Monday, that should have been my first indicator of how the evening would go. Colors remind you of the beach you're not at - felt like I was at a shack in Jamaica versus a restaurant in Minnesota.

Service - again meh. I never like to go in depth here cause people are allowed off days but man... food was ordered through the server, brought out by some other people not our server - and then server didn't come back until the end of the meal and asked if we wanted dessert... but by the way we're out of the strawberry rhubarb... one of the main reasons we were looking forward to this meal. Not her fault they're out of it but just poorly executed.

Food. I mean... The burgers were good. We had a fig burger and a spice is right burger. Both well cooked and flavorful. One child had BBQ wings... which had almost no BBQ, were mixed being almost undercooked and overcooked, and over all were quite terrible. He barely ate half of them.... and they aren't big. 2 kids got the YUM YUM. One said it was great and inhaled it (but disclaimer - is a swimmer who just got done with a 2 hour practice and would have eaten the bowl if I'd let him) and the other said it was good until they discovered the severely undercooked RAAAAAW egg white in the bowl. Tater tots and French fries for burgers were both double fried, which means they fried them and the fries got cold, so they put them back in the fryer to heat them back up again instead of throwing them away. So gross. 130 bucks and over half of us walked out still hungry.

Drinks - I got an espresso Martini.... it was brown water with some crushed espresso beans on it. Clearly no booze in it. We ordered a margarita.... it came in a highball that was almost totally ice and some mix but apparently did taste like tequila so thats good. I guess.

Last thing. I wanted a side salad instead of tots for my side, and asked for Bleu cheese and French- my standard order anywhere. They don't have French dressing. I mean.... it's French dressing. Who doesn't have French dressing but has a dog menu? Pretty ridiculous, and maybe the salad would have been good and not double fried.

Not worth it to talk to management about so many short comings. One or two things is correctable. 10+ issues is intentional. Honestly so sad this place is what it is... and it could have been so much.

Avoid this...

Yes parking spaces are narrow. Don’t bring your suv bring smaller car if you have one. Impressed with decor and visual appearance indoor and outdoor seating. We elected to sit inside with the thought of rain. Noise level wasn’t to bad until it started to rain and people sitting outdoors had to move inside. I can see that they may need to add some sound deadening material in the future.

If management reads this review I hope they get that they have a 5 star server “JOSIE” that made our visit!!! Honest, respectful, very motivated, and an excellent communicator. It was 1:50 and we were still looking at the menu but it turns out that it was there brunch menu and JOSIE listened to us and stated at 2pm the dinner menu comes out. So she did check to make sure we could get the next menus but we would have to wait to 2pm to order off that menu. Later she came back to apologize that it would be about 10 minutes more because the kitchen was still catching up with the brunch menu. THANK YOU for this communication!!! For me this place just opened and I need to show patience and all I expect is honest communication that Josie provided for us!!! Among all other things it started to rain and staff made room efficiently for those people inside.

I am from centeral Wisconsin and I know cheese curds. There cheese curds were excellent. Also the pretzels were delicious and tender. I also had the bone in smoked wings and I love smoked meat but rarely get what I like when I go out. The meat was juicy, tender, smoke flavor excellent, and the Buffalo sauce didn’t saturate the meat (which is important so you get all the flavors and texts). My Dragon bloody was also excellent!

For us serve was excellent and to watch Josie walk with purpose and take time to stop back many times at her tables was a pleasure to watch.

For people who state they understand a restaurant is opening up but attack the wait time and give a 1 star review. COME ON GET REAL! To state that they should be prepared for the rush when they just opened the doors come on! They need time to get things figured out how the flow should go.

My fiancé lives close by so we will be back. I hope Dukes continues to work on all aspects of food and service and not just settle. I hope Dukes also take time to recognize that workers need to get praised for doing an excellent job. Again Josie thank you for helping make our experience an excellent one and putting your employer in a...