Eastern Kille Distillery — Restaurant in Plainfield Charter Township

Going to start this review by saying my wife and I have been coming here since the days of Grey Skies (f* you Big Liquor), and I adore their alcohol and cocktails, and always have a great time. First time visiting their new location and was blown away by the setting, construction, and ambience. It’s absolutely impressive and I hope for their continued success. They’ve evidently made immense investments and taken considerable risk, and have somehow pulled this off without! raising the price of cocktails. Huge applause on that.

This all being said, I have some heavy opinions on how they can improve the “Backyard” area of their new location. Wife and I had to sit back there because we had our dog, and were verrryyyyy disappointed when our nice cocktails came out in tiny plastic cups. Completely blew the wind out of our sails and, not trying to be a snob here, sort of killed the vibe and experience. Nothing compares to a drink in a glass, and because their drinks are so worthy, this absolutely has to be ironed out to avoid the backyard being the absolute last resort, disappointing seating location for patrons on a busy night (or those with a dog!). The substrate is gravel, hence the no glassware, which makes sense. Have to avoid broken glass shards in paws and feet. However, their website proudly foretells the coming of fire pits and other improvements - including a dedicated shipping container bar which is awesome! But imagine having this incredible outdoor area, fires raging, tunes blasting, dedicated waitstaff - the works - but drinking a $12 - $14 cocktail out of a small plastic cup….. absolute buzzkill.

My suggestion is, if you’re making continuing investments in this area, pave it as well, or use some heavy duty rubber stall mats (Tractor Supply has 4x8s for $50) so you can have glassware which could easily be cleaned up if broken. You simply will not surmount the disappointment of having your customers drink exclusively out of plastic-ware. You’re going to spend all of this time and money making the Backyard nice, but no one will want to sit there. Your beautiful drinks require beautiful glassware (maybe just avoid long-stemmed options outdoors) for the maximum experience.

Anywho, apologies for the long-winded review. Just love you guys and applaud you on what you’ve done and wish for your continued success, no matter what you decide to do with the backyard space. I eagerly await returning and sitting next to a raging bonfire with my wife and pup, drinking your world-class old-fashioned (out of a proper rocks glass!). Much love...

Service needs improvement, especially drinking on the clock

Came in Wednesday night, the outside was full but inside was empty so we sat inside. We were greeted by our server Ellie who introduced herself and then said she'd be back. Eventually another staff member helping Ellie out came and took our entire order, drinks, app, and entree because it had been so long since we spoke with someone. This restaurant has good team work as other servers and food runners delivered our drinks and appetizer (even checking on us) and eventually our entree. Ellie finally comes over when we have entree's asking if we are enjoying anything and at the moment we didn't need anything. Eventually we finish and are showing all visible queues that we are finished and Ellie is running all around us and to my surprise takes a shot at the bar with the bartenders, a few bar guests, and the manager that had recently came over asking how our experience was. Eventually we got boxes and we where cashed out but even if your company has a policy on shift drinks, why was the server so stressed that another server had to take over our table, check on us, and get our entire order, but Ellie had time to drink on the clock cash us out and then go right back to serving other...

The place is beutiful and clean, however that is the highlight. Menu is limited to overpriced pizza and apps. While the food is good, it is very overpriced for what you get.

Pizza is cheap to make and fast to cook with good equipment. $20 for a small, relatively simple pizza is a big ask, especially when all mixed(not draft) cocktails are $12+ , all made with their own spirits, which should be cheaper to them than buying branded spirits. $10 for the foccacia that is about 1/8 of a pan is insane. When I make foccacia at home, it costs about $3 to make a pan. This is excessive, double the portion or cut the price, this was not nearly enough for the table to share.

On to service... we were greeted and seated quickly, that was nice. There were 2 servers each time they came, it made it feel awkward and overly formal for a casual place, I guess they are trying to be fancy? Idk. Then we waited at least 20mins after we were done to get our bill. I don't think I will be back, there are a dozen places to get better dinning experience for that price( or a lot less). If you don't care at all about value and are ok with sub par service, the place is beautiful and the food is good,...