Timothy's Restaurant — Restaurant in New Buffalo Township

We chose this place because of the gluten free options. My fiance has a severe gluten allergy and a dairy allergy that can be dealt with by medication. The atmosphere was nice, relaxed, and not busy on a Wednesday night at 615. Our first problems started with our waitress and a complete lack of knowledge of allergens in the food and couldn't really answer any of our questions. So much so that after confirming it was gluten free, she had to come back twice and we had to change our order. We also ordered from the drink menu, then were eventually told they couldn't make one of their signature drinks for some reason and had to end up getting water. It took nearly 30 minutes after we had ordered for her to come back. We had to literally tell her we needed to order. Nearly an hour went by, we had ordered two lobster meals, which were completely shell in, there was no cutting open the shell or anything. Just cooked. A smash burger, a waygu sirloin, and a salmon dish we were told was gluten free. During that hour, our waitress never came and asked how our appetizers were and I had to hold up my drink glass to get a refill finally. The appetizers were the goat cheese appetizer, the cauliflower, and a zucchini appetizer, which were all very good. 45 minutes in, one of the chefs came out and had to ask about mustard on the smashburger, finally the waitress came out and said our food was almost ready. When the waitress came out with our food we saw something going on at the door and she had to turn around to hand one of the serving trays back to the chef, which caused some concern. When she came out with the rest of the food, I asked her what had happened because frankly, it's fairly important when you have a severe food allergy, that everything is okay and there hasn't been something messed up. She said it wasn't your dish, it was a couple appetizers for someone else. Less than a minute later the sous chef came out and told us that they had accidentally put a sauce with gluten in it, around my fiance's plate, but that it hadn't touched the food... that was in the middle,... on the same plate. He took it back, wiped it off, and brought it right back out to us saying it was okay. The big problem with that was, when you have a severe allergy to something, you can't take any chances whatsoever! The fact that they just wiped it off of the plate was a huge no go. Not only that, but he had just outed the waitress for literally lying to us about what the problem was. My medium rare steak was cooked completely through. When it said garlic potatoes served with an Asian vegetable medley it all came out piled on top of each other, barely warm. Mind you, we had been there for over an hour and a half at that point. When they came out again, we told her that she wasn't going to eat the salmon because we can't take that chance. I showed her my steak and pointed out that it was not cooked correctly. She apologized and that was the end of it. They did not offer to fix it, or anything. At the end of the meal they came out to offer us free desserts, which we declined politefully, I will add that there was no disrespect, and we were always very polite and respectful. She turned back around, left, and nothing else was done to remedy the situation. The manager never came out, the chef never came out, the food was not eaten. When you're advertising yourself as a fancier restaurant, and your manager, or chef doesn't come out when there's a problem with the food, ESPECIALLY when it could lead someone to being horribly sick all night and having to take charcoal pills, that's poor business. Being lied to by your waitress, and thinking wiping an allergen off of a plate, instead of replacing the dish..... It's the one of the worst experiences in dining that we have ever had, and I urge people that have allergies to think twice about dining there. It was extremely shameful to be lied to. The manager and chef should be ashamed of themselves, and their staff's conduct and treatment of paying...

This was probably one of the worst dining experiences I've ever had. When I walked in for a 7:30 reservation we arrived at 7:20 and figured if our table was ready we would be seated. An older lady barely greeted us and I told her we had a reservation. She said hold on and I thought she was looking it up but was workring on something else. Then said "You're at 7:30 so you're gonna have to wait" and then kept working on whatever she was doing. Another woman came over and I explained and she sat us right down. We ordered an app which was good but then the bachorlette party or whatever they were celebrating a table of 15 women were so loud we could barely hear ourselves think. It almost was comical how out of control they were so early and everyone was staring at them in disbelief but no one did anything. A woman at the table next to me commented how she couldn't believe no one had asked them to be quieter or leave. We placed our order at 7:50 and the food never came. We asked our server and she said they were backed up and when I asked if anything could be done about the volume of their table she said no. It got worse, and louder. It felt like a drunken 2am bar. We were trying to make a show at 9 and the food still hadn't come out. Around 8:45 it came out and my steak was cold. I said something to the server and she took it back, and about ten minutes later brought it back and it was barely edible. It was so over cooked. We asked for a Manager and the woman who helped seat us was very kind. Probably the only helpful person all night. We asked why a supposed "fine dining" restaurant would allow a table that raucous and loud to stay and they said the owner wants everyone to have a good time and unless they are saying something vulgar they can't say anything to them. I asked her if Timothy's family was there dining in that chaos do you think it would be an enjoyable experience? She was kind enough to remove my entree from the bill and offered a dessert but we had to leave. We left and got no greeting goodbye from the older lady who just watched us leave. I guess if you aren't willing to take feedback from an entire restaurant of people staring at a spectacle and have sub par very expensive food there's only one thing left to do and that's never...

My partner and I were in Harbor Country for a long weekend to celebrate his birthday. We decided to make a reservation for Timothy's for the birthday dinner, I noted it on the reservation but there was no birthday dessert or even any mention of it. I decided not to bring it up because the food was bad and we wanted to leave as soon as possible.

First off, the menu is confusing and all over the place and that is reflected in the food. As others have noted, there was a long wait time between each course. We probably should have known better, but we ordered the oysters (we usually LOVE oysters) but these were clearly not fresh, not served on ice which is standard, they did not taste good, and we could not eat more than one or two. When the server came by, I was honest about the oysters and she seemed apologetic but did not do anything about it.

The 'best' thing was the clam chowder soup and house salad that came with the Wagyu that we ordered. When the Wagyu finally arrived, it was quite a confusing plate, as the description did not match what I ate, there was bleu or gorgonzola cheese somewhere on there (no mention of it on the menu) and it completely overpowered any other flavor that was present and I had to scrape it off to try and taste the steak which was overcooked as well. My partner ordered iced tea and it was just so bad, no flavor, tasted off, he did not take more than a few sips! I don't know how you can mess up tea.

I feel bad because our server was very kind, and I know its not her fault that the food was bad, but we paid about $180 for the final bill and left very unsatisfied, not to mention the birthday thing! Timothy's feels like it needs to be on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, perhaps it used to be good, but something...