Hell Saloon — Restaurant in Putnam Township

Normally when people have a really bad experience they just want "justice" and want to tear a place down in the reviews to feel better. I'm going to try to avoid doing that and give an honest review. I think there are 4 parts to it for me.

Food 2 / 5 Stars Let's get started with maybe the most important, food. Maybe the chef was having an off day. Maybe I ordered the wrong thing but my guests and I did not find the food all that good.

Water - I never thought I'd have to leave a review that involved a place's water, but here we are. I suspect it's well water because it has a very strong taste. I've grown up with well water and for most of my life it hasn't bothered me but this was not potable for me. If the water is coming from a filtered source, the filter desperately needs to be changed.

Chicken Pasty - The pasty itself was okay but a little dry. It comes with a gravy to offset that and normally that would be fantastic. But on the day we went the gravy was way over-salted. I'm not sure anyone taste checked it before using it but there was no flavor other than the salt that was added.

Reuben Sandwich - Again, this thing was way more salty than it needed to be. In fact it was kind of odd because the meat was heavily peppered, which I can normally really appreciate and enjoy. But this time it was all that could be tasted, salt and pepper. And for every reuben I've ever had, they'll have swiss cheese and sauerkraut on them but this had neither, so I'm not sure I'd call it a reuben. It was more of a sliced beef sandwich.

Cocktails - Had one or two and while I don't remember what they were called, they were pretty good. No complaints.

Service 4 / 5 Stars The waitress handling our table was nice, polite and professional. I really don't have any complaints here. She didn't tend to us as much as we may have needed but it was also a little busy so I can't fault her.

Gift Shop 3 / 5 Stars They have some neat merch in here but some of it doesn't have price tags. Be sure to ask and check that it's something you're comfortable paying for. I didn't realize some of the shirts were $40 and have a little buyer's remorse on that. Some advice to the owners, while some people love LOUD souvenirs, some of us want something a little more subtle.

Dealing With A Mistake 1/ 5 Stars So unfortunately after my trip, I checked my CC statement and noticed I was overcharged. I don't know if it was an accident or malice, or someone trying to give themselves a bigger tip. I called to try to resolve it and ended up speaking with someone that was introduced as the owner. At first they tried to claim that the excess was due to a 3% service fee but that appeared nowhere on the receipt (of which I have a picture). I also pointed out that I'm referring to the total on the receipt I signed. As far as I know they can't charge more after the fact. It's also worth noting that the overcharge is closer to 12%, so it's very unlikely to just be some extra fee. When I asked more about it, the owner was very flippant. They didn't seem to care that a customer was overcharged and they had little interest in correcting the mistake. Eventually they did agree to refund my card the amount but only after I had to push for it. And even then, they never did and I had to go through my credit card company to handle it.

Update: After talking with the owner and them agreeing to fix the mistake. They're still trying to stick to their story and...

Let me start off by saying what the new owners have done to the place is amazing! It is beautiful inside and out! We stopped in about 6 months ago and the food, service and atmosphere was amazing!! I held a spaghetti dinner benefit on June 27th 2017 for a friend who passed away. The manager was a friend and helped me set it all up! The spaghetti was beyond amazing! It was homemade and the best spaghetti I have ever eaten. The drinks were good as well. I have a HUGE issue with the service! I sat at the table for almost 2 hours waiting for my waitress to come check and me see if I needed a refill a water anything and she never once did. I finally went up to the manager my "friend" and ordered it through her, a drink and some more food. Drink was not that good but food was amazing. Another friend of mine had to order her food with the chef herself, get and refill her coffee all night because the waitress never came over to us not even once! Someone else who came for the benefit had a family of 3 but wanted to buy 4 plates for the extra donation the waitress tried to convince them to buy just 1 plate to share instead of 4 then got attitude with them and asked them what they were going to do with the 4th plate. Fast forward a couple hours kitchen was closed and the waitress had left. The manager was sitting at the bar having a drink after her shift. I went up to the bar to pay my tab and get 2 more drinks. I stood there for 10-15 minutes while the bar tender was chit chatting with some people at a table literally 5ft away from me. I turned around and said something to the manager and her response was "No offense but you aren't the only person in the bar." No I was not the only one in the bar there was about 7 or 8 other people in the entire place besides me! From what I am told the waitress is new and I hope she does not last much longer! She now claims she had an attitude because she did not get a single tip from anyone at the benefit which I know for a fact is false. Now... my friend who also got absolutely NO service has become a waitress there so that in itself is a huge improvement! She is a much better waitress and will bring great service back to the place! I would really like to get ahold of the owners to see how they will handle the situation but I know they are not there all the time and i have no idea how to get ahold of them without having to deal with management because I will not speak with her again! We will not be returning anytime in the near future...

Short version: Good place to ride out to. Mediocre eats, long wait time for food, drinks and table plus under staffed but I did get one well made Captain and Coke.

Long Version: Best part about this place is the motorcycle ride to get there. It was a gorgeous day when I went so there were many bikers present and the place was extremely crowded. We walked in, looked around and waited to find a seat. A large table cleared and there were only two women that seemed to be working there. We ended up clearing the one side of the table ourselves. It was probably another 30 minutes after our waitress introduced herself that we got our first drink which 3 out of the 5 were waters and a coke. We had to find her to order our food and the food took quite a while to get out to us also. Once we got our food she asked us about refills because we all had empty glasses for some time by then. I then decided to get a rum and coke. It took a long time and several passes of our table before she got everyone's second drink but she didn't get mine. My friend reminded her but by then I was okay with just getting back on the road. She came back again without it. Long story short I got my second drink when she brought the bill which was again after we tracked her down. On a good note, the drink was a good stiff drink. Kudos to...