Chuck Wagon Pizza — Restaurant in Pere Marquette Charter Township

I rarely leave reviews, but our experience at Chuckwagon was so poor that I felt compelled to share, especially for those who may be returning based on its former reputation. My husband grew up in the area and had fond memories of this place, so we were excited to visit—despite hearing it was under new ownership. Unfortunately, the problems began right away. When we arrived, we stood in the waiting area for about ten minutes without so much as a greeting.

Once seated, we noticed the dining area was far from clean—floors were dirty, and chairs were covered in crumbs. A server attempted to wipe our table, but it was left soaking wet, and we ended up cleaning it ourselves. Not a big deal, if that was the worst of it I would think nothing of it.

We ordered drinks, and while sodas were brought out, waters were forgotten—twice. I had to go to the bar both times to ask, and it still took over 30 minutes before they arrived. It was a frustrating start, but we tried to stay optimistic.

After an hour, garlic bread was finally brought to the table. Sadly, it was paper-thin, dry, and flavorless. We waited another 15 minutes for two pizzas, which arrived overcooked with a burnt, cracker-like crust and very little flavor—disappointing even to our kids who are easy to please with pizza. Additionally, one of the pizzas was clearly smaller than what we ordered. Again, normally, I would overlook all of this and just chalk it up to a bad experience.

We mentioned we were still waiting on a second pizza and breadsticks, which the server seemed unaware of. Apparently, they had never been entered into the system. We asked for the missing items to be expedited, but still waited another hour. By this point, we’d been there for over two hours and 15 minutes. When the second breadsticks arrived, they were somehow worse than the first—rock-hard and inedible. A woman who appeared to be the manager or owner came to speak with us. She apologized and blamed the issues on a missed order entry and a previously large table of guests, offering not to charge us for the forgotten pizza.

When the final pizza arrived, I asked for the check immediately. We waited another 20 minutes, only to watch two servers standing behind the bar doing nothing. I went up to request the bill and was met with more confusion—they couldn’t even recall what we ordered. They also tried to charge us for a larger pizza than we received. I finally asked for the manager to ring up our bill. She removed a few items, and asked if the total was acceptable. At that point, we just wanted to leave and paid the bill she presented.

Between the unclean environment, unreasonably long wait times, disorganized service, and subpar food, it was an exhausting and disappointing experience. Sadly, the beloved Chuckwagon is no longer what it once was, and we won’t...

Called from the parking of Hamlin Grocery to place our order. Was told by the automated greeter that we were the next caller in line and that someone will be with us shortly. Approximate wait time...one minute. Five minutes later a worker answered the phone and asked if we could hold then put the phone down on the counter for us to listen to their customers talking in the background. While on hold we went inside Hamlin Grocery to purchase some beverages. Buy the time we came out, we were still listening to the customers talking inside the restaurant.While on hold, another member of our party called them from a another phone and their automated greeter said that they we're second in line and someone will be with them in one minute. After waiting for several more minutes, we decided to drive towards Chuck Wagon and would place our order along the way. We arrived at the restaurant, walked inside and were third in line...and still on hold. Right before one the employees was ready to take our order, they noticed the phone off the hook and said, "Can I help you?" We yelled out, "We're right here!" The employee told us that they were running behind and it would be a 50 minute wait. We said, "Okay", and decided to drive by the beach while we waited for our order. When we arrived back at Chuck Wagon (50 minutes later) to pick up our order, half of our order was coming out of the oven, the other half was going in. Twenty minutes later, we left with our complete order. Our pizza had plenty of toppings, but their pizza sauce wasn't as good as it was in the past. The crust had a weird texture, and lacked flavor. On the positive side, we were just happy that our pizza wasn't as well done (burnt) as some of the other pizzas we seen them serving...

New ownership, much the same chaos and not as good. We come to Ludington, MI once a year in July for 10 days to enjoy the weather, the beach and Chuck Wagon. After this evening, we likely won't return. They are still plenty busy and won't likely miss us. We know they are busy and got there a little after 4pm when they opened. We ordered mozzarella sticks and two pizzas, our normal yearly treat. 45 minutes or so later we get our first pizza, then our second one 5 minutes later. Usually we hope the bread sticks/mozzarella sticks come out first instead of after the main dish (this happened last year as well, the appetizer after the pizza). We ask about them after the second pizza and the waitress had to be reminded that we ordered them. Upon checking we are told that there was a printer issue and the order was lost....not all of it, just the mozzarella sticks somehow. We are asked if we still want them and are told it would only take 10 minutes. We agree to wait. Two different other servers try to give us our bill (it was busy Im sure they wanted us out), and we have to remind both we are still waiting on the mozzarella sticks. Finally 25+ minutes later, and more than an hour and 15 minutes since the order we got our mozzarella sticks. Turns out they were better tasting than the pizza which was over cooked and the crust was hard. To be fair in the end we weren’t charged for the mozzarella sticks (hence 3 stars instead of 1). Luckily we were on vacation with no immediate plans so the nearly two hour time frame wasn't an issue. We'll try to find a new pizza...