The Forge Kitchen & Parlor — Restaurant in Neenah

I've stayed at this hotel twice but never visited the restaurant on-site. A late flight in and a busy day ahead left me with limited choices, and I decided to check it out.

The waitress/bartender was super helpful in answering questions I had concerning items on the menu.

I decided on the pretzel bites and teriyaki chicken wings. She brought the pretzel bites out first, and although the beer cheese was not the best I've had, it was good.

At the moment, my wings were brought out. I was so excited I told my husband who was on the phone with me that I would call him back because my favorite dish had arrived.

I pushed my pretzel bites to the side and immediately dug into my wings to be immediately disappointed. They were cold! I reached down to the lower portion of the basket and tried another one, but it was also cold.

The taste of the wings were amazing, but I could not eat them cold, so I asked them to be sent back. By the time my waitress got back to me for me to send them back, her explanation was that I had let them sit too long before eating. Hold up! What did you just say? I cook wings at home, and my family has to wait at least 5 mins before eating to prevent burning their mouths! I literally tried to eat these as soon as they were set before me!

She was kind and removed the charge from my ticket but politely let me know that they were hot when she brought them out because they were personally cooked by their manager. I declined to comment that managers make mistakes, too.

All good things start from leadership. Perhaps they need to implement corrective actions based on their customer complaints....

Not so great food wise, but the service was rather good and friendly. Burger was quite tasty with nice beef, a great roll and crispy-fresh toppings (lettuce, onion, tomato), but ordered as medium, it arrived closer to rare (quite bloody) - that is not a problem for me but could be for others. So, be sure to double-check the "done-ness" of your meat in case they don't. The French onion soup was so salty I simply couldn't eat it. It had a rather non-standard composition - very heavy worcestershire-sauce-type flavor and the consistency was so thick (sludgy), that it seemed almost dry. I recommend avoiding it until they overhaul their recipe. (Or maybe it was just way over-reduced from simmering a long time, making it both too thick and too salty?) The burger and soup both indicate a need for quality control improvements in the kitchen. However, the breakfast entrees the next morning looked and tasted good all around the table, so perhaps that is their strong point in...

Came to an open house at the hotel about a month ago, tried some really good spinach and artichoke dip that I was told was available in level one, and it's not... or at least not currently, it might be after the menu change over but the server was uneducated on it. They were also out of mint leaves for the drink I wanted, which is on their specialty drinks menu. Tried to order calamari as an appetizer after I found out there was not spinach and artichoke dip, and they didn't have any ready to cook. Tried the seafood trio and the flavor was pretty good, the salmon was delicious but the scallops totally got lost in the dish. Would dine here again but would choose different...