Whitefish Lake Restaurant — Restaurant in Montana

I've had the absolute worst service at this restaurant and feel it is important to share my experience...

My son who works very hard in this town for very little money saved up enough to take his mom out to enjoy a very nice dinner. He ordered a bottle of Joseph Phelps Insignia priced at over $300. The waitress Carrie was extremely rude and condescending. (treating my son like he could not afford to order the bottle) After our dinner order was placed about an hour had gone by, I got up and asked the host if our waitress had forgotten about the wine we ordered. The hostess assured me that Carrie had not forgotten about the wine and that it was "behind the bar". I was puzzled and told the hostess that we order a large bodied bottle of wine that needed ample time to open and I was concerned that our dinner would arrive before the wine.

When Carrie finally came to the table with the wine, (about the same time our dinner arrived) the bottle had already been open. Again, this bottle of wine was over $300 and anyone who knows wine knows that the uncorking of a bottle IS part of the experience.

I asked Carrie why she did not open the bottle at the table and that she clearly knew this was proper wine etiquette. She then insulted us and said "if we could not afford the bottle she would take it off the bill"!

This was absolutely ludicrous as I used to go to the Whitefish Lake Golf Course Restaurant 3, sometimes 4 times a week, as I am a local and live near by.

Carrie proceeded to say that I requested the bottle to be opened behind the bar!

I have been a fine wine connoisseur for many years and that is simply NOT true.

My son knows my taste and knowledge of wine and knew that Carrie was lying. He told her that was not true. Carrie again said she would take the bottle of wine off the bill.

At NO time did we ask to return the bottle although now, in hindsight I wish we would have.

My son paid for our dinner AND THE WINE without tipping her due to her blatant rudeness to a long time standing patron.

It was an absolutely awful experience and my heart just sank for my son who worked so hard to save money to treat his mom to a beautiful dinner.

After we left I called the restaurant the following day and asked to speak to Doug. I was told he was out of town for a graduation. I left my contact information and was told he would call me when he was back in town. I waited about a week and called again. This time I was told Doug was in the hospital. I again left my contact information and asked to have Doug please contact me when he was back and feeling better. Doug NEVER called back.

I no longer go to this establishment, even though I used to frequent 3 to 4 times a week as I indicated above.

The quality of service has greatly diminished, and the lack of customer care by never receiving a return phone call from management shows that the service is far from what one would expect from a fine dining restaurant.

Fortunately, there are other great restaurants in Whitefish and throughout the Flathead Valley and I am more than happy to say since not returning to Whitefish Lake Golf Course Restaurant my family and I are always treated exceptionally well...

PLEASE READ!

My parents went to go have a nice dinner. My dad travels for work and is home not very often and so they don’t get a lot of “date time together”. They went to this place expecting to have a really amazing meal, unfortunately that was not the case. Rude service and mediocre food was not what they planned in their night.

They got sat down and ordered cocktails that arrived very promptly. As they were chatting and enjoying their time the server Linda R came over to the table asking them if they were ready to order. My parents kindly said no that they weren’t in any rush and that she could give them a bit. She had responded “Well I need the menus.” You need the menus? You’re a fancy restaurant with minimal people in the restaurant. What do you mean you need the menus?

They ordered an appetizer that was quite pleasing. They had got escargot, as they glanced around the room and the man at a neighboring table had got the fancy escargot forks. When she arrived back at the table my mother, who was trying to lighten the mood with Linda R said, “I see he got those fancy forks could we get some?” Linda proceeds to respond with “Oh those are only for special customers.” Oh? Well after their interaction my parents asked if they could have some wine. She said of course, however the wine tasted as if they uncorked it 2 weeks ago and placed it back in the refrigerator. It was very vinegary.

Now let’s talk about food, my parents were served salads before the meal. Unfortunately the out of control pepper mill was out of hand. Linda R was cracking fresh pepper over the salad and got it EVERYWHERE. It was not only on the salad it was in my dad’s lap, his hat, the menus, on the table cloth. I mean everywhere. When their main course arrived it was very mediocre. My mother got a $70 8oz steak. This $70 steak was very over cooked along with the horseradish potato’s that had no flavor and fried in very old oil. Now my dads meal was $54 for a halibut that was as well dreadfully overcooked.

When the bill it was over $200 which my parents wouldn’t have minded paying if the food and service was good.

This was very unfortunate that this place with such high ratings underperformed. We always say that the server can change the mood even if the food was awful. However the food was bad and the service was worse. I hope you read this honest review and think twice before spending ungodly amounts of money here for their bad service and mediocre food.

Thank you Whitefish Lake Restaurant for ruining my parents night and thank you Linda R for making it seem that my parents are not important to you and your work...

The food was incredible and our server was super nice. However, we went there for a nice, romantic, quiet dinner for my husband’s birthday and what we experienced was far from that. There was a company Christmas party for a bank going on and when we were first sat down, we noticed how loud some of the people were. Sadly it just got progressively worse. It distracted us during our dinner and interfered with us having conversation, but still wasn’t too big of a deal until the night went on, and the drinks were evidently flowing for the group, and they became louder and louder. The noise level became obnoxious, and most tables were staring at that group. I couldn’t believe that this was acceptable at such an upscale restaurant. When we got to the point where we were ready to box up our food and think about dessert, we finally (kindly) mentioned to our server that the noise from that group was ruining our experience and she offered to move us. We took her up on that and moved a couple tables over which helped a tad bit but, again, they kept drinking and kept getting louder. Overall, the food was great and our server was helpful, but had we known that’s what it would be like there we would have never gone. It was definitely not the environment for that type of behavior. It ruined everybody else’s dinner experience that night. We are a younger couple and can have fun with the best of them but this was just a...