River House Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Moline

Today was my second time at River House - for context my first was about a month ago with a large party (20 or so) from work for a retirement luncheon. It was reserved but they seated us in the middle of main floor at long line of tables put together so not comfortable for us or any other patrons around us. We had only one server, he was very polite but definately overwhelmed - waited a bit minute to order a drink, even longer to order food, food took forever to come out, much confusion with drink and food orders, getting checks so we could pay and get back to work was a mess. But, I gave them the benefit of the doubt because we were a large group at lunch time. So my folks drove in two hours to visit us today and we decided to try the River House for lunch. We (four adults, two kids) got there at about 20 to 1, rather end of the lunch rush, couldn't get seated for about 20 minutes because of party size (okay... fine) but then they say they still don't have a large booth open but they can seat us at smaller booth with a chair placed at the end - okay, fine, we just want to eat - so they lead us right past an empty, clean large booth (it remained empty throughout our stay, why?) to the smaller booth. Then we waited another 10 minutes to place drink orders. There was no beer menu and our server apparently didn't know what beers they had to offer, told my dad & I that they had Lienie's original in bottles - 10 minutes later with everyone else's drinks they didn't, wait another 5 or 10 minutes after everyone else gets their drinks. She didn't take our food order when she brought the (first) drinks - were ready when she took our drink order in the place because we'd had plenty of time but she never asked either time, they were out of several things and when my wife asked what the remoulade was the server said "it's remoulade"... really, thanks...so we waited another 5 or 10 minutes to place food orders. I am not being facetious at all when I say we waited 20 to 30 minutes to get our food. By now my kids are basically crying because it's at least 2.5 hours past normal lunch time and they're starving. We all finished eating in probably 20 minutes, server saw that the plates are mostly empty - just picking at fries.... so I guess she figured we didn't need the check for another 5 minutes or so after being told we were ready for it...and another 5 or so minutes to pick it back up. We left immediately after paying and it was nearly 3. What should've been an hour lunch was more than doubled and ruined virtually the rest of our day. I think our server was polite but I'm not certain because I don't recall seeing her that often and there was so much time between take visits. I'll be fair though, their food is pretty good. The fries are nothing to brag about but I had a build-your-own burger, medium with a bunch of fixings and it done right and tasty the first time I was there. Today I had the club, my wife had the fish tacos, my dad had the tenderloin sammich, my step mom the lettuce wraps, and my kids a burger & chicken fingers - all executed well and tasted good and my son likes extra pickles so she loaded him up - except the fries, I'm pretty sure they're from the freezer section at Hy-Vee just like the bag in my own deep freeze. I'm not sure the terrible service is outweighed by the food though, honestly, I'd rate them lower if I could because of it. Don't eat here unless you have zero plans other than that and aren't already starving. As a matter-of-fact, you might plan on getting there two hours before you ACTUALLY want to eat and have a light...

**Tried eating here this past Saturday, January 21st at 3:30 - 4pm CST. My girlfriend and I came to Moline for the Old Dominion concert. We checked in to the Wyndham across the street then walked over to River House.

My daughter was also driving to Moline for the concert, but was an hour behind us. So, we sat at the bar and had a couple of drinks and an appetizer. A friendly waiter was telling interesting stories about the place to a table nearby and the menu looked fantastic! All was going well...until.

We needed to switch to a table in the bar room to accommodate my daughter and her friend. There were 2 couples finishing up soon at the high top in the corner next to the front window and the 4 open high tops behind us would soon be filling up as the crowd was beginning to trickle in.

So, my girlfriend approaches a hostess requesting the move. We sat for 10 minutes and the 2 couples at the high top by the window left. The table sat vacant 5 more minutes as we waited. Nothing was happening so I approached a host (male) who was completely overwhelmed by the growing crowd. I requested again the same table and he told me I'd have to wait. I walked over and sat at the table to try to preserve it. The table still hadn't been cleaned. As I sat there the host approached me after 5 minutes and asked how many is in our party. I told him 4. He asked if they were all here. I said my daughter had just parked and pointed at the Wyndham which I could see through the window.

It was then that I was informed about their policy of not being able to sit at the table unless all of our party was there. I had just informed him that she just parked and is walking over. He again mentions the policy. I began getting angry and raised my voice asking for him to be a bit more accommodating given the info I just provided. Besides - what if I had just said I was a party of 2?? The 3 other high tops along the window / wall were all giving me that knowing look and shrugging their shoulders in complete disbelief at my plight.

Well, the manager (petite dark-haired girl with unique eyes) comes over, reiterates the policy, and asks me to leave. As I'm leaving she makes some smart aleck remark as she's riding out her power trip. Nobody with this attitude towards patrons should be working in this position.

Had this manager not bothered to check the weekend events calendar?? They were completely understaffed for this weekend with a softball tournament and concert (10,000 people) in town at the same time.

By the way - the table had still not been cleaned when I was asked to leave!!

We'll be back to Moline for more concerts, but we'll never set foot in this disrespectful dump with their "policy" against the ones who...

Let me start by saying the food is great and that is one of the reason we do go there. We went the other day for dinner. Pretty Slow night so we were kind of surprised that our food was taking so long. But we were not in any rush so we waited. My son ordered a burger. The server forgot to ask what temp we wanted it cooked to so she came back and i told her medium. The food showed up and they forgot the topping for my husband’s tenderloin, no big deal. They brought it out. My son (11) took two bites of his cheese burger and it was raw on the inside. We are talking about a 1/4 pound burger that was raw two bites into it. So the server comes back and i show her that it is raw. She is like OMG im so sorry im going to get a manager. I was just hoping for a cooked burger. The manager walks over and i hand it to her. She didn’t offer an apology. She asked what temp we wanted it cooked to, i said medium or no pink is fine. She says well medium will have some pink in it. Are you kidding me? No shit Sherlock. I said as long as it isnt raw we will be good. The poor server comes back after a long time with his burger. She must be thinking her tip is shot at this point. We ask for our check and she says the manager took that burger off the check. We said ok. Then she has to come back with the check and says that she didn’t take it off the check. We told her not to worry about it. We tipped her the normal 20%. It wasn’t her fault, but because of that manager we will probably not be going back. I wasn’t looking for free food. Just common courtesy after you served my child a raw burger. The food is generally pretty good. But i really don’t want to deal...