The Brownstone Inn — Restaurant in Onota Township

4 stars here. Faux wilderness lodge setting along Hwy 28. Quite busy this visit so about a ten minute wait. Antler chandeliers, real and fake wildlife trophies, and old outdoor gear on the walls. We arrived simultaneously with a tour bus full of young-high school-seniors-students and their chaperone. Glad we got seated and ordered before them. The staff took great care of them and everyone else without missing a beat. Our server could not have been better. Right away we were presented with a bucket of four freshly baked rolls with cinnamon butter. Very tasty and they brought out more when the bucket was empty. The kind of touch we rarely see anymore. Great for breakfast the next day 😉. Menu not inexpensive here. Saturday prime rib special looked inviting to my DW so that was the choice for her. Chose the small cut with a dressed baked potato. Her other side was coleslaw with the blue cheese crumbles left off but that was a mistake as they put horseradish in their coleslaw!!! That is a real head scratcher to us but must be appreciated by the locals. What really caught my eye was the two different preparations of elk meatloaf on the menu. One as a plate with choice of sides and the other as a sandwich with mozzarella, provolone, and marinara sauce. The sandwich won out. Two thick slices of Texas toast with a minimal amount of marinara and a thick slice of the meatloaf plus the gooey cheeses. They kindly brought a requested side cup of the sauce but unfortunately it arrived straight from the frig. Still nice to have. My side choice was red skinned mashed potatoes which were delicious, probably made that day. While the sandwich was enjoyable as a whole, the elk meatloaf itself imo really could have used something to liven up the flavor like pepper, onions, or sage, etc. Actually quite bland. The prime rib slice was much bigger than expected but looked gorgeous, clearly not something that was brought in precooked and heated when ordered-yes we have run into this in our travels. The beef was cooked just right with a nice rosy center…this meat was seasoned perfectly with salt and pepper. Large baker was perfect and not a bit was left on the plate. Much of the beef came home with us and was enjoyed the next day. Too full for dessert! Really the best meal we had while in the area and highly...

Just an odd dining experience. Took us forever to get seated because they have an online seating chart for their maybe 10 tables and the guy was fiddling with that instead of seating us. Why? I have no clue. We were sat down at the table and it took 10 minutes for our waitress to even acknowledge us. We finally got some rolls and then our waitress said she would be right back to take our order. Another 10 minutes later she finally takes our drink order, and another 5 minutes after that she finally showed up to take our order. She started off by walking up the table and just stood and stared at us without talking, which was extremely awkward. I was waiting to see what she was doing since she said absolutely nothing. Her next move was to literally stand less than an inch away from me, right on top of me and finally ask us what we wanted. It was extremely uncomfortable and invading. I was leaning as far away from her as humanly possible and even after we made the order she just stood there for a full 30 seconds practically on top of me. It was exceptionally weird. Took about 40 minutes to get our food and our appetizers was almost inedible. Way over fried. My steak was cut up into small sections and cooked, it tasted burnt. My brussel sprouts were burnt. Staff did not know their own menu! She kept asking us what came with our food on on our food. And then when we said what came with it she would ask us to show her the menu. Apparently one of our meals came with a salad, she brought that out and said she didn't know whose it was, but it went to one of our meals. I watched her only other table complain about something with their meal and she just sat there and shrugged her shoulders for a solid 2 minutes before the poor woman got up walked behind me, grabbed a menu, and showed her something inside before she would finally take the food back to the kitchen. $31 for a subpar steak that I had no appetite for by the time it finally came. Spent almost 2 hours there and left frustrated after paying a whole $80 for an awkward...

Are you kidding me put the condiments on the table, don't make the poor server run back to the kitchen every time. We arrived around 4:30, we were seated promptly even though the dining room was very busy. The host let us know that our server would be right with us. We must have waited 10 or more minutes to see the server. In the meantime the host returned with rolls and butter however there were no hors d'oeuvres plates. When the server arrived and ask for our drink order we had asked again for plates. She let us know that she would attend to that. My wife had ordered coffee, with cream and sugar. Our server let us know that they did not have cream only milk, I ordered a beer. When the server return with the coffee however had no milk and sugar and had to return to the kitchen to retrieve it. Still no small plates. We ask again for the plates, again she returned to the kitchen and came back with the plates. I still had no beer.

We ordered dinner at the same time we ordered drinks. I waited another 10 minutes before I asked the server if she had forgotten my beer. She walked to the bar pick the beer off of the bar and brought it to me with an apology that she had forgotten.

We waited another 10 or more minutes before being served our meals. I had ordered a cheeseburger with onion and swiss cheese, when it arrived there was no onion. At this point I told her to just forget about it I would eat it as is. I did ask her at that time for mustard and ketchup and salt and pepper. Again she had to return to the kitchen to retrieve these items. She returned to the table with an explanation that they did not have regular mustard just honey mustard. Which I assumed was salad dressing. This is not my first bad experience with the Brownstone. I don't often get to the UP but rest assured on my return next time I will not be stopping at...