Dogwood Social House O'Fallon, MO — Restaurant in O’Fallon

My family hosted a surprise birthday party for me here, and overall it was great. Jordan (sp?) was really helpful and made service really smooth at our considerably large table. I believed someone named Amy also helped us. Food was tasty, and the atmosphere is dynamic! Our guests really enjoyed themselves, which mattered to us. So, bottom line: a successful event thanks to those who helped my family members run it! Thank you!

If I had only one criticism, it would have been about the axe throwing. I had been wanting to try this for a long time, so I was excited (once the surprise party details were disclosed to me upon arrival). But the front desk staff were super hands-off about it. I get that we were a large group with some people who didn’t really follow what was happening, but that’s exactly why some more explicit instructions would have been great.

Instead, they had us sign waivers and then throw those on a pile on the desk. Then the male staff member working this function went near the cages, laid out the axes on a desk, sat behind it, and then just sat there…silently. No invitation to begin. No instructions (again, we really needed that because we had party members who, like, have never touched an axe before), no safety guidelines, nada. When asked by a member of our party about what to do, he said we should just pick up the axes and go in and start throwing them. Like, yes. Of course. But please speak to us or SOMEthing. We didn’t want to impede or rush staff members or disobey any rules in our excitement to try this.

We found this stand-offishness worrisome because there were no safety precautions (e.g. a line you shouldn’t cross while throwing so you don’t get hit by an axe bouncing back towards you if it doesn’t stick to the target, limit of people who can be on a lane/in the cage, reminders not to walk down the lane without checking you won’t get axed in the back, etc.). It’s not like bowling, which is so much more common and you can pretty safely chuck balls down the lane with no blades involved and probably not hurt anyone as long as you’re not being completely ridiculous. I know we were all adults there, but any help would have been great. Again, there were party-goers who were 100% new to this and were nervous but wanted to play because it was part of the party. We made guesses and helped them as much as possible but we should not have had to be solely responsible for that.

I’m leaving all that here as feedback for Dogwood, but I want to say again that I did enjoy it and I do think it would be nice to bring a group back there…but maybe not for...

**Edit: Was going to update this to give credit to the owner for responding to so many reviews…. Until I saw the one where he forgot to delete “ChatGPT” from the top. They’re literally just feeding reviews into an AI chatbot and copy/pasting the replies. Doubt this place makes it.

Third time visiting tonight and very disappointing. I really liked this place the first time I came but I’m worried it won’t make it if others are having similar experiences.

We came in with another couple to have drinks and dinner and watch the City game. They’d had it on tv in the past. We asked the server if they could put it on and she told us they are unable to stream Apple TV. No big deal, it’s not a normal channel. We stayed anyway. Then we see a huge banner by the arcade advertising that they have every MLS game on tv. So we ask again. She rudely tells us that she already told us they can’t stream it. Okay, whatever. Service was awful all the way around. It took forever to get waters, drinks, food, and we sat for more than 30 minutes trying to close our tabs without a server in sight. We were there for close to 3 hours and never had a single thing cleared from our table. 10 minutes before we leave, the City game comes up on the main screen. Guess they had it the whole time, she just never bothered to ask anyone.

Food is decent and reasonably priced. Good drink menu but the pours are weak and inconsistent. Arcade has lots of games but several were malfunctioning or missing balls.

I really hope they get it together. It’s a cool place and I want it to succeed. I won’t be back though unless I hear things...

1st time here.... Sat evening. We met group of friends for Bday event.... So 12ish in the group. The overall set up walking in is underwhelming with "prizes" on one wall and an equipment/welcome desk across from it. No greeting or clear distinction of "hello..how are you? Food or games or both?" The large couch areas were allowed to have food and drink but were really not eat friendly as table space is very limited but bar height tables were very close by to walk back and forth and agaist cage for axe throwing (good and bad) The VR games were offline so no go. One of the Hard punch games did not seem to be operating properly as we watched others attempt it...so I didnt bother trying it. Darts area was ok and operated fine. Big screen tvs could easily been seen from the entire large room... no sound on though... needed captions turned on. Food and drink service was average at best and this place was maybe half full of pple. Food came out timely and as ordered. Taste was average with little to no seasoning... we had chicken quesadea and pulled pork pretzel. Pretzel thing was not good enough to finish. We didnt play any of the ticket games so no comment. Beer station was unique with like 40ish tap handles available to buy by the oz and avoid the bar line. Overall we were there 4ish hrs and didnt try out all that was available and after watching other pple do so.e the the things available my lack of interest kicked in. Most of our party seemed to have a good time and some had been there before. We may try again at some point but 1st impressions are hard...