Black Rock Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Pittsfield Charter Township

What a strange experience at this location! My family went out for my son's 5th birthday and he chose Black Rock for dinner. First of all, relatively not busy for a Friday night, but we were informed there was a party of 20 on the opposite side of the restaraunt that had come in around the same time, so I made sure I had our appetizer, drinks, and food order ready to go right away. Kids get restless, kitchen will likely be busy with that big party order, etc. I put in our order as soon as we met our waitress. My husband joined the rest of us inside about 15 minutes later, and he ordered a drink and a cup of soup. Waitress brings out his soup in like 5 minutes, and my husband politely asks to wait for his soup atleast until our appetizer comes so we can all eat something together. Waitress says "she didn't order an appetizer." I corrected her, she nodded, no apology or acknowledgment that she remembered that, and left. (The waitress had a very strange demeanor---I honestly have no idea how to describe it other than saying she was super rude & passive aggressive while using a very over-compensatingly sweet fake voice while she was doing it but it was glaringly obvious how unfriendly she was.) Maybe she just had a bad night, I try to give a lot of grace at restaraunts....But, these kind of things continued. She comes back and says it'll be awhile for our appetizer because now the kitchen is in the middle of preparing food for that large party of 20. It's already been about 30 minutes since we sat down, and my husband still hasn't gotten even his drink but, ok. Appetizer eventually comes and it's boiling hot. Bubbling to the point of popping hot lava cheese on my kids. No problem though, we take the small dip dishes off the hot rocks so they stop bubbling and set the hot plate with the rock on it to the side away from the kids. Waitress comes back and literally scolds us and tells us to put the cheese dipping dishes on a plate because we're "gonna leave marks on the table". Fine. We do that. Finally our dinners arrive. Everything is messed up. The kids food is all laying/"presented" on top of the saddest brown, wilted lettuce I've ever seen (why, i have no idea) and I'm scrambling to remove the wilty lettuce before they notice and decide not to eat it, (because-- kids are weird) while I tell the waitress the kids sides are wrong and she insists I told her differently. I didn't, but ok it's fine we'll make it work I'm not going to argue about it. I ask, very politely, for a side of caramel for my daughters apple slices (usually that comes with them at our home BR location). Waitress huffs and says she can ask but she doesn't know if the kitchen will and if so, it'll be extra money. Again, FINE, I'll pay it. Waitress brings the small cup, slides it on the table while walking by and simultaneously knocks the standing menu on the table into my potatoes I'm eating and keeps walking. I'm already SO annoyed at this point. Between the service and the obnoxious group we were sat next to, I'm ready to go. We decide to forget even mentioning dessert, not that it was even offered (since it was my son's birthday and that's what he wanted for dinner) and we leave. Not once were we asked if we needed drink refills, not once did we receive even a verbal acknowledgement that there were multiple issues with our service/food. Nothing. $110+ dinner and I would've rather went elsewhere. I'm still fuming.

EDIT to include that I did indeed email the management, as they requested, with ZERO response....

Have gone to Black Rock Ann Arbor a dozen times, and usually love it. Not this time due to bad service, bad steaks, and bad overall experience. To start, our server wasn’t great. She didn’t have much of a personality and was a bit odd to be honest. She would linger at our table staring, but not saying anything. She’d come by and take one drink to refill it, without speaking or asking if anyone else needed refills (which we did). Worse than this, we ordered appetizers, soup and salad, and steaks. We got our appetizers, soup, and salad all at once, which was kind of annoying since the apps should have been out first. Then, just one minute later, we got our steaks and sides delivered by a different staff member. We told them we couldn’t take those yet as we needed time to enjoy our apps and also our soups and salads before they got cold or our stone for the app got cold. Our server came back with the steaks a minute or two later and said “you sure you don’t want these since you ordered everything all at once?” I said no, we did NOT order everything at once, and we should be given time to enjoy our apps first. She seemed annoyed but took the steaks back. Then it took a really long time to get the steaks, long after we were done with our apps and soup and salad. When we got them, our New York strip had SO much gristle in it that we couldn’t even cut it and bent our fork in half trying to do so! We asked for a new one, which honestly wasn’t much better. Our stones were cold by this time, so we had to ask for new stones. We were also there for my daughter’s birthday, who is a minor, and they said the only way she’d get her free dessert is by signing up to their VIP club. I don’t feel like a minor should have to do that. So that took at least 15 minutes to get signed up and verified for her to get the dessert. We only saw the manager once when he said he’d get us the new steak, but he didn’t bring it out, and never came back to check on us. Overall it was a horrible experience and I don’t think we will be back since they didn’t do much to try and...

Saturday- Amazing. Sunday- like a different restaurant.

Went for my first time last Saturday. Sat at the bar because it was busy and no tables. Bartender was super attentive and taught us all about the restaurant and kept our soda filled. We ordered 3 appetizers and they were served very quickly. We also had 2 different people check on us to make sure we loved the food. Front of house was all smiles and so nice. We were in and out in under an hour and LOVED IT.

I returned the following day, Sunday at 7pm, with my family for dinner- bragging about the amazing service. We were met with a front of house that didn't seem happy to be there and more than pleased to turn away people due to the "15 minute wait" it took them to clear an already empty table. We asked to wait at the bar for table. No one greated us at the bar and drinks came but waiter disappeared so I couldnt ask for menu or order appetizer. No one gave us menus until directly asked. Finally we get a table and menus... ordered appetizers and dinner because now it has been over 30 minutes. Appetizer served around the 55min mark-- no silverware on table. More than 30 minutes later we got the uncooked steaks... mind you the waiter doesnt ask if it is our first time, he doesnt offer to show or tell us how to cook on the stone. He walked away immediately. Luckily I had seen the viral video with the girl showing how to do it but it was pretty lame how he just dumped the food and bounced without ensuring we knew what to do. I then had to ask for silverware as we still had none (thats when they disappeared)... food was really good but this was a solid 2 hour experience with no smiles from waiter or front of house. Everyone seemed miserable to be there. Like night and day from the day before.

I would recommend the Saturday staff and experience all day. Sunday was not the day to go.

Price for what you get is really really good. Food is really great.

To the blonde bartender gentlemen on Saturday around 5pm, you are a rockstar and gave us an...