Rok N Fondue — Restaurant in Redlands

Definitely could never recommend this place and would even urge others to stay away unfortunately it's the only fondue place anywhere that I know of so I guess I'll just go back to never eating fondue or making it at home.

Honestly so disappointed in this place our experience was overall fine but the restaurant itself ruins the experience for itself. The food actually was actually pretty decent and had good flavor and the drinks were well made, those are pretty much the only parts that were good.

We arrived about 30 minutes early for our reservation and they were unable to seat us which is absolutely ok, but the reasoning was that they had just sat a table, as in a singular table so they were unable to seat us. When we get in finally there is a total of 4 other tables one of them is a table of seven and the rest were a 4 3 and two 2's also a single person at the bar. First round of drinks took about 10 minutes from order until arrival and were great. We ordered the cheese with sun dried tomatoes (All cheese pots are $25 and the optional sausage and pickles for $10. The dipping stuf came out (literally a tiny bowl of apple slices a few pieces of bread some chips and a little bit of veggies) and the $10 upgrade for the sausage and pickles was a total rip off is size while the sausage was pretty unspectacular. The cheese we chose remained pretty gloopy nothing like you'd expect at a fondue place or as fondue cheese, the portion size with 3 of us (2 adults one 6 year old) who were trying to be considerate of each other and not take too much cheese is one bite, was absolutely tiny and we barely made it through about half of the provided accoutrements before the cheese was absolutely gone literally such a rip off amount. Next we order led the lamb chops and with the side of wine mushrooms and broccoli, they messed up and gave us a side of mashed potatoes as well. The lamb chops were $46 and came with the most abysmally anemic 3 "lamb chops" which it took a literal 2 bite for me to eat all the meat and my 6 year old finished it in 3 bites I don't know what their margins are but it can't even be close on the lamb chops. We had also ordered a cocktail when we ordered the lamb which took in the ballpark of 20+ minutes to receive. We asked about it every time the server stopped by and she kept assuring us that it was on its way, at the 10-15 minute mark we saw the ticket print so the bartender made and dropped it off after ~20 minutes. We continued to eat all of our waters were dry because they never had been refilled so I walk up to the bar the bartender isn't there. I can only assume the gentleman was the manager because he had a button down shirt who was just standing there talking to someone and asked me what I need I told him it's be nice if we got some water he said it'll be right out walked away and after literally (I genuinely mean a real 15+ minutes I timed it) 15 minutes the server comes by and says she'll be right back with some water and I still have to get back up and get water from the bartender. We chose to just go across the street and grab ice cream for dessert I am extraordinarily surprised this place is still in business and that would still be the case if I soley meant because portion size and...

Service: 5 star. And I don 't give that out without true merit. Our server was Bailey, a charming, polite professional. Food: Stunning, absolutely no flaws. Served efficiently and with Manhattan NYC professionalism. Shocking for our area, the Northern IE. No mediocrity here. I noted that Swiss chef Peter is here! We can taste his decades of Euro-professionalism in the food!!! And I have eaten on 3 continents. I get it. We appreciate this depth of quality and experience. The most under-rated chef in So CA. Value: High. Pricey, but worth every penny! Non-pareil. There were absolutely no flaws in the presentation, ingredients, flavor. Ambiance: nice subtle lighting. Would be nice to see "warm" colorful theme art on the walls to match the food and experience. Needs more warm visual embellishment in this charming historical building. Restroom air dryer is inefficient (low air cfm). Clean though! Clean restaurant. Btw, art on the walls would reduce the echo noise. Noisy game watchers drinking beer made it hard to carry on a conversation. I recommend you sit upstairs, away from the bar that plays sports. Parking: good. You can peruse historic downtown Redlands. Summary: this is the first restaurant I've seen in many months where you can see that having "older", more experienced team leaders super using and training the younger Millenials. ALL great restaurants I've experienced have classy senior experienced management in charge. Poor service and food is practically a given when young, nonchalant servers and bartenders are put in charge prematurely. I feel like the msnagement here has a caring, fair, instructive insistence on detail from employees and is training them in the arts of excellence in client service. And I can taste the difference in the cuisine since Peter has returned. Wine: I had the Napa Provenance merlot, 2015? Wow, an intense, black fruit n clove perfectly integrated balanced wine. 92+ points. Awesome. The red glasses are a little thick n heavy to handle in order to examine the wine and appreciate it. I'd prefer a thinner, longer stem Bordeaux glass... Perhaps they have these on request. I get it. This is still the northern IE. People probably wouldn't appreciate it. Comment: I hope the management keeps up the diligence and does not lose touch, because in the past service has been a little hard on the edges with some lesser sophisticated yokel servers. Keep hiring servers like Bailey. She was not in your face nor arrogant, nor unattentive, just professional and helpful. Thumbs up.

Summary: 5 star. No questions. Finally, a great overall experience at a professionally run establishment in the...

I’ve been wanting to try this place for a long time, but after this experience, I wouldn’t return. I honestly don’t know why the service was so slow & sloppy, the restaurant wasn’t busy at all that night. We went on a Wednesday.

I made a reservation for 5:30, we showed up at 5:28 and checked in. We weren’t seated for almost 15 minutes. Aside from 2 guys drinking at the bar, we were the only people there at the time. What’s the point of a reservation?

After being seated, he took our drink order. I got a rum & coke and water. I don’t know if it’s their glasses, ice, or unfiltered water, but the water tasted like soap. I asked for a different glass and it still taste like soap. Wtf.

We ordered the cheese fondue and steak. The waiter brought out the fondue and made it in front of us. The cheese sauce split and he had to make it again. I felt bad for him, but maybe they should make it in the kitchen instead of in front of customers.

We also explicitly told the waiter that my grandma wanted to dip her steak in the cheese—which was coincidental, we were just making conversation and assumed it would come out together but it didn’t. The steak didn’t come out until much later. We asked if we could order another pot of cheese fondue for the steak, but he told us it would have to be a whole other round with bread, veggies, etc.

When I went to the restroom upstairs, the toilet was already clogged—filled with urine & toilet paper. I informed the waiter and he apologized and said to use the one downstairs. Throughout the night, I saw multiple people go into the clogged bathroom. I don’t know why they didn’t put an “out of order” sign or something.

And my rum & coke never came. We were ordering dessert when I told the waiter just to cancel my drink. And yet, it still showed up on the bill. After asking the waiter to take the drink off, we had to wait 20 minutes for “manager approval.”

Honestly, I don’t know how service was this poor. It was an extremely slow night. The waiter was friendly but slow service, missing drinks, soapy water, split fondue, clogged toilets, and waiting 20 minutes for them to fix the bill means I’m not coming back. Definitely not...