MacKenzie River Pizza, Grill & Pub — Restaurant in Rapid City

I have ordered take out (due to COVID) three times now. The first order included 4 menu items for 3 people. 3 of the 4 were barely warm when I picked them up and were mediocre. They tasted fine and were prepared fine. I did not enjoy mine and my friends who had ordered the other two did not particularly enjoy theirs either. But hey, it was food and we were hungry. The fourth was pretzels that probably are not made in house, they were great.

The second order was a single order of wings for myself. They were fine, not great but not bad. I got the thai peanut sauce, which was good but most certainly not Thai and not very peanuty. It was just a good wing sauce, that's all.

The third order is the reason I gave a one star review rather than an average three based on my first two experiences. I ordered the dozen wings and a flatbread pizza. I had it delivered since they have free delivery right now. My order showed up almost two hours after I placed it ... Not great from the start, but i was hungry so I was going to ignore that.. until I opened a box of PLAIN wings (why would I want sauceless wings?? Especially when that was not specified on the website when ordering). Not only that, but the sauces (I wanted to try all three, hence why I got a dozen rather than the normal six) were spilled ALL over the bag. Even worse, the wings were so dry as if they had been reheated in the microwave ten times and the flatbread pizza was a big clump in the box (but still edible of course). The wings were so bad I just threw them away. When I called to discuss the issue with the restaurant, the manager was incredibly unorganized, impersonal and unhelpful. She offered a "discount" with no apology or even a sympathetic tone of voice for the mishap. A discount was not going to solve the problem that prevented me from eating dinner, so I asked for a new sauces and a refund for the sub-par service. The experience was all in all terribly unimpressive. The most dissapointing part is that I have only been ordering from this place because I was given a $100 gift card from a co-worker and I DONT EVEN WANT TO USE IT.

I am highly unsatisfied with Mackenzie River. Wish I could get a refund for the gift...

This is really hard to write because I hate to write reviews that are remotely negative. So let's start with what was great:

The food. Everything was very good. Our server Becki. She was working extremely hard, had a great attitude and tried her best to make our experience a good one.

However, she had no chance to make this a good experience. It was obvious to me 5 minutes after we walked in the door that this restaurant was operating SEVERELY short-staffed for a busy Friday night. We were quoted 35-40 minutes and we waited about 45 - no huge sin there, I'm pretty laid back. But once we sat down, it was clear that our server Becki had AT LEAST the whole bar area and maybe more as a section. As a result, our experience was not a good one. We waited about 40 minutes after ordering for any food to arrive. We received adult meals before kids meals and even our appetizers. Our ketchup was empty. We had no napkin rolls and had to start eating without napkins and silverware. Worst of all, despite her great attitude and NEVER complaining, my wife and I could tell Becki was mortified over the level of service we were receiving. But she literally had no bandwidth to do any better. We tipped Becki over 30% but that was for her effort, not for the service we received.

Management and ownership, I sympathize with you. I know hiring is hard these days. But at the risk of oversimplifying, you HAVE to figure it out. We don't live in Rapid City so you aren't losing a customer in us. But if we did, there's no way we'd go back, at least on a weekend. It really was that bad of an experience. And even worse, it clearly wore on Becki. Employees won't stick around at a place where customers are consistently disappointed, despite their efforts.

The food was great. The location's great. The staff was working hard. They deserve to have the chance to provide the kind of experience customers are looking for. Get it...

This was an interesting place to eat. All of the staff is friendly, accommodating, and knowledgeable about the menu. The atmosphere is different and a welcome change from the same grill/pub/bar places like Chili's, Applebee's, 54th Street, etc. The booth we sat in was pretty spacious. The food was overall less than par for us. We got the chicken quesadilla appetizer and it was fantastic. I wish I would have just ordered another one as my meal. It was large enough to be a meal. Our meal selections were not the right choice. She ordered the pulled pork sandwich. Right from the start she noticed that something was off. It just didn't taste right and the bbq sauce on it was off too. The whole sandwich just screamed "don't eat me, I'm not tasty". I ordered the street taco trio, modified to all being southwest chicken taco. (I'm not a shrimp person and wasn't in the mood for pork carnitas). The little sauce things they give you are brilliant! The shell was way too stale for me though. It was like I was trying to bite into a piece of cardboard. The filling was pretty good, but I just couldn't enjoy it because of the very labored chewing I had to do to get through the shell. Neither of us finished our meal. The server was very nice and had them removed from our ticket without us even asking about it. That is major bonus points for our server and for the location giving their servers the ability to do that. The 3 stars are for the atmosphere, the staff (including our server), and the appetizer. I would probably go back and just get that appetizer as my meal. I'm not sure I would be adventurous enough to try anything else off the menu since neither of our meal choices were very good. I would recommend this place to others if they were to order...