Shelter Distilling — Restaurant in Montrose

It seems like they can't decide how to run this venue. The food is pretty dang good for the price, and the drinks are fantastic; best selection of draft beers I've ever seen at a distillery. But, it seems they can't decide if they want to be a full sit down experience or a first come first serve digital ordering setup. Even the employees don't know which way is correct. An experienced front of house manager is very much a necessity for this scale of venue, and it's apparently lacking for there's isn't a solid dining system in place. The reason I say this is the last time I went there As we walked up I was finishing a soda and went to throw it away in a trash can that's just passed their front door. The hostess busted out the front door and whisteled at me like a dog. First off, customer service basics here, "excuse me" is a perfectly acceptable way to get someone's attention, whistling at people is just plain rude, no matter the context. Then she proceeded to tell us it would be an hour wait, we told her we're here to see the band that starts in 30 mins. Can we just grab a drink and stand on the patio? She said sure, grabbed our number and name to call us when our table was ready. When we walked around the corner between the bar and the host stand there was half a dozen empty and clean tables that would have fit our party. An hour wait? Why? Are you that understaffed you're telling the hostest to lie to people? That's a sad state of affairs if so. Next we got our drinks sat in some spare chairs by the stage and started listening to our friends play music. As we waited we saw the staff clean two tables in front of us, then another guest walked up to one of the servers and asked if they could sit at one of the tables and the server replied "oh yeah, it's just first come first serve... go right ahead" meanwhile we haven't been called by the hostess, we decided hey this teenager at the front doesn't know what's going on so we'll just grab the other table. But why would she make such a big deal about putting us in a list when thats clearly not how things are run at this restaurant? Also just generally the service staff was very rude, one of the food runners was really nice and helpful, and the blonde bar-tender was running circles around the rest of staff and managing to be very sweet, while the other dark hair and skinned lady behind the bar acted as if her guests, you know the people paying her via tips, weren't even worth her breath. One simple question was asked about the menu and she just threw the QR code in front of us and walked away. First off, customer service is supposed to "service" that's why people tip for it, not attitude. Training is key, if people don't know what's expected of them they will never rise to it. And if there is a solid system that's understood by the whole staff, then you're less likely to make your business look...

My husband and I recently (7-28-24) went to shelter for a little "date lunch". When we walked in there was no one to greet us, which was not a big deal, but led me to believe you could just seat yourself. As we proceeded to go sit outside a waitress (I'm assuming) said we could sit anywhere and asked if we wanted to use the QR code to order or if we wanted a waitress. We proceeded to let her know we'd like a waitress and she said OK that someone would be with us. We were promptly brought some water, but that was it. After almost 15 minutes of waiting for a waitress to come and check on us and take our order, someone finally came over and asked if we were OK with the QR code or if we wanted a waitress. I proceeded to state that when we had walked in we had stated we wanted a waitress. The lady apologized and went to grab us menus. After bringing the menus back we took a look and about 5 minutes later she came back to take our order. Unfortunately she was having issues working the POS device that was used to take our order and had to ask twice what we wanted. Which was fine, but I feel that she should've been trained properly on how to use the device before coming to a table. Again, no big deal. Our drinks were brought and about 10 minutes after that someone came by to see how everything was and asked if anyone had taken our order, to which we replied that we'd given our appetizer order but not actually ordered any entrees. She took our order and put in. In this time there was a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 children) who came in after us that sat behind us outside. They were promptly taken care of and unfortunately even though we were there before them, and put in our order before them, our food was not brought out until after theirs. There was a manager on duty, MG, that my husband and I have known for years walking around checking on guests (which is great!), but when he got to our table to check on us, acted as if he never met us before. Which I felt was odd. After receiving our food we were checked on numerous times to make sure everything was good, which it was, and we were grateful for. We will be back, but I feel that everything, as far as, cohesiveness of the staff could be worked on. We had 4 different people check on us when there really only needed to be 1. A good server needs to learn to balance all the tables he/she has. Not blame not coming around on "being short staffed". Unfortunately, many restaurants I've been to have had that issue, but whether or not you can acclimate to that issue is the difference in great to mediocre service. Thanks again for the great food, and like I said before, we...

Opening Weekend: Just opened and has wonderful potential. The building is beautiful and is in a fantastic location. My husband had the Bison Onion Smashburger ($18) and Truffle Fries ($3) which were both very good. We attempted to eat the Yellow Fin Ahi Tostada ($17.50). Although not described as spicy on the menu, the majority of the tuna was soaked in chili crisp oil and then dusted in ground cayenne pepper (see photo). The staff was polite albeit a bit nervous as they spilled drinks on both myself and my husband. The beverages were inconsistent. The Strawberry Lemonade ($6) I ordered off the mock-tail menu was sickly sweet, served in a highball glass and the Spicy Margarita ($13) was meh. The gem of the craft cocktails was the HoneyDUDE ($13). Overall, we are excited about the potential of Shelter Distilling. We will be back and look forward to trying it again in the future.

First Update May 2024: We returned on Memorial Day. My husband had the Joe Burger and I had the Philly Cheesesteak. Both were good. Food and drink delivery were efficient. As during our previous trip, we had trouble getting a to go box despite flagging front staff and requesting it. After 15 mins I just walked out with my leftovers in a napkin. Overall wonderful atmosphere and good selection of food and beverages.

Second Update May 2025: Returned twice over the weekend. The menu has been updated, the service was better and they have responded to the feedback from the community. I like ordering on the app but it was nice to physical menus for those that need them as well. The menu has also been updated since they opened and works well for groups with...