Uncle Linnys Food and Brews — Restaurant in Pontoon Beach

BYOS (bring your own seasoning). First time here and I can say of all the places I have eaten, this is definitely one of them. The overall experience was as “meh” as the food. We had the chicken fried chicken, the double cheeseburger, and fried Mac and cheese as a starter. The Mac and cheese balls were good until they cooled off and then the flavor of the Gouda in them took over and they started tasting sour. Literally everything on our plates for our entrees needed salt and pepper. They didn’t need more, they needed it, period. The salt and pepper on the table aren’t there for your convenience, they are there to make you part of the cooking experience.The chicken and burger were cooked well, although the bun was dry and the gravy on the chicken was partially transparent (NOT a good sign for country gravy). The kicker was the mashed potatoes. Aside from the aforementioned lack of seasoning of any kind, the potatoes seemed to be a combination of real mashed potatoes and a considerable amount of instant potatoes (you can’t fake that texture and taste nor sneak it by someone who was raised on it).

The place was quiet, but I assume that was due to the day and time as it is clearly set up to be more of a lively bar with food than a restaurant. This might also explain why there was only one waitress working the entire floor.

Overall, this place could really take off if the cooks did all of their job and just seasoned their food some and stopped making white gravy with water and oil and used bacon grease and milk instead. If they don’t know how to do it, I’m sure I can find a Memaw to stop by with her cast iron skillet and show them how it’s done.

I’ll wait until someone else reviews this and says things have changed before I...

I'll just break my experience down for you. The jalapeño poppers are frozen, the fried pickle slices are not actually slices, they are spears and are too chewy to actually take bites out of so they just slip out of the fried casing. The ranch seemed very thin and just had a consistency akin to water. I ordered the mushroom Swiss burger, and for some reason, it came with bacon. Personally, I'm a floppy bacon kind of guy, and they absolutely cook the hell out of their bacon, so it's all crunch. My girl got the BLT wrap, and she said it was good, but she likes that crunchy bacon, so if that's you, then go for it. The burger bun was falling apart, and the cheese didn't even cover the whole burger. It was folded on top of itself, so there was about half the burger without cheese. On top of that, they threw a whole solid layer of onion on the burger. Don't get me wrong I love onions as much as the next onion slut but gawd damn just bite after bite with a mouth full of onion like okay go off girl. The service was interesting. There was, I guess, a regular that came in who is definitely off his rocker a little bit and started trying to sell stuff to the staff, and they were actually interested??? He just started unloading a bunch of shit onto a table, and they were actually sifting through it 😂 what is going on. At this point, the server gave up on coming up to our table and just started hollering at us from across the room if we needed anything else. The experience was 10/10 for the story, but I ain't...

I've been here a couple of times. The wait staff are always friendly and the food is always good. I had the grilled chicken sandwich and side salad when I went a few days ago, and everything was delicious and came out so fast (not sure if the service is always that fast as there were only two other tables with 4 people total plus myself at the time.) The prices are very reasonable. My meal was about $10.00 for the sandwich and salad (I had water for my drink), which is surprising since you can barely get a McDonalds meal for that price! And needless to say, the food is by FAR better quality at Uncle Linny's Food and Brew. I'm kind of a snob about ranch dressing lol (I think it's a Midwestern thing) and theirs is so good! I think they make it fresh in house or something because it tastes so much better than the stuff out of the bottle. Their honey mustard is really good, too.

There is a little section of gambling machines, maybe four or five. There is a partition between the restaurant and machines, which is nice. I played on the machines for a little while and won quite a bit. My only complaint is that it's really hot by the gambling machines. The restaurant temperature was fine, but it's noticeably warmer when sitting at the machines. It's odd because it's really one big open room for the establishment, but I guess there's no air flow on that end of the building.

Oh and they have a drive through. I've never used it personally, but maybe next time.

I'd definitely return...