The Birdhouse Eat & Drink — Restaurant in Robbinsdale

I’ve heard so many good reviews of this place and I’m so disappointed! We brought a group here today for my son’s birthday and it took a long time to get a larger table bussed (there were 5 of us which included a toddler, IYKYK you need the space, and I thought originally we had 6 but one didn’t come)—I waited probably ten or more minutes just based on the pictures I took of my son lounging on the green couch. I didn’t see any servers in that time which felt like a long time for there to be no servers in the dining area!

But whatever, things happen, I can definitely let that go. We ordered three sandwiches (black bean burger, turkey avocado, and the Italian sub thing) for the grown ups, a kids meal grilled cheese for my son, and a kids meal mac and cheese for my niece. It was almost a FULL HOUR for that amount of food and the restaurant was not full. At some point our waitress appeared and said there was a mix up in the kitchen—I can’t figure out what mix up it could have been other than maybe the couple seated at the bar got their food before ours. It seems like a simple order???? I don’t know. Again, either way, I could have let this go! The burger and Italian sandwich were both cold, and the cheese on my son’s grilled cheese was not melted and looked like it had SAT sat. I’m including a picture for reference because the cheese looks so rough. Also the grilled cheese is only HALF A SANDWICH and it costs $9. $9 for one piece of bread with two slices of cheese that aren’t melted and chips. My turkey avocado sandwich did not have avocado on it, which to be absolutely fair, the waitress immediately said without hesitation that she would get me some…but then it was a smooth half an hour before that arrived at the table and I had to ask about it a second time. She was a lovely person and very apologetic about all the delays, so I truly don’t know what was going on. When the avocado did come it seemed very small (four very thin slices—looked kind of funny on the plate 😂) and two of them were significantly brown.

When the waitress came to collect our plates and drop the tab, she asked my niece if she wanted a box for the mac and cheese because it looked untouched. My niece said no, and the waitress asked if anything had been wrong with it. My niece is a sweet kid and is just honest and said it came out cold. The VERY NICE waitress said she would have heated it up for her, but we honestly never really saw her after the food was dropped other than the avocado situation, so there wasn’t really any saving that dish by the time she could have asked. I just don’t really know what to say about this place because I had heard good things, and I’d definitely get over one or two of these things, but all of it together is a massive bummer. Review the grilled cheese photo and tell me...

Very disappointed with our most recent visit on 11/8/20. We had a reservation for 5:15p. We were sat and greeted by our waitress promptly, but didn't know what drinks we wanted so our waitress said she'd be back. It took her about 10 minutes to get back to us, at which point we ordered food and drinks. By now it was maybe 5:30p. From 5:30p to 6:30p, the only time our waitress returned to our table was to deliver drinks, and then someone from the kitchen brought us the appetizer we had ordered. There were maybe 7 tables full inside and another 2 outside. We had a table of four, we ordered one appetizer and four burgers.

At about 6:30p I walked up to our waitress and asked her if maybe she forgot to enter our order (as I noticed a couple tables that sat after us had received their food). She said the order was entered, and the orders she had brought out to other tables were appetizers, which they prioritized. I hadn't actually mentioned anything about any tables getting food before us, I simply asked if our order had been entered. I then mentioned to her that we had been waiting on our food for a while, she responded that one order was ahead of ours and she'd go check on our food. At 6:45p no one had returned to our table and no food had been delivered, so we left enough cash to cover our drinks and app and left.

So at that point, on a fairly slow Sunday evening, it had been over an hour that we had ordered food and hadn't received it. We had been at our table for an hour and a half. I personally saw two to-go orders go out during that time, so it didn't seem like that was the backup. What was most disappointing was the lack of communication from our waitress. I've never left a restaurant in this manner before, but it was all we could do because it seemed she was intentionally avoiding us. If she had just come and told us the truth of what was going on (whatever that might have been), I don't think we would have walked out.

I'm also saddened by the situation because my wife and I had tried this restaurant a few weeks before and had a good experience. Food was good, drinks were good, service was good. We were out with friends and wanted to take them here to try it because of our good experience before.

I feel bad walking out, and I feel bad leaving a bad review, and I know small businesses right now are struggling. I also know it can be difficult for a new business to get things running smoothly and efficiently. I'm willing to overlook a delay here and there. However, my biggest piece of feedback is to communicate to the customer, good or bad, so at least they aren't left wondering...

Update 2: my wife loves this place so we went again. I had the Nashville hot chicken and it was the best chicken sandwich I have ever eaten.

Update: I am updating this review as they have a significantly better menu now. I gave them a try again and I was really impressed. I would 100% recommend this place!

We wanted to give this place a go, but with the pandemic and all we didn't feel comfortable sitting in a restaurant. Now they have online ordering, we were excited to try it.

The online ordering was a bit of a hot mess. The website is easy enough to use but the instructions provided are not axcury or helpful. It says to call a number when you arrive, but the number is just their main number which gives you a recorded prompt with numbers to press. Pressing the numbers does nothing and no one answers the phone when it rings. Finally I decided to just go inside and thankfully they had my order ready. They should revamp the online ordey process because the instructions provided are worthless. I will forgive this though since we're all new to this and I expect growing pains for a new restaurant.

The food: is good. I had a Build-your-own burger and my wife had a juicy lucy. Both burgers were cooked well, with tasty patties and a great bun that was soft but didn't get soggy. The bacon on top of my burger is crispy, if a little bland in some parts. That said, they missed half the requested toppings on my burger and instead added it to my wife's. Again, something I would expect from a new kitchen staff, but also something they should work on.

My struggle with this place is not the food, or the ordering, or anything else. It's really the point of it. By that I mean there isn't much about the place that really stands out. It's essentially American food, decent enough food but not amazing. Certainly not wildly different from any other food you can get in a half dozen places in Robbinsdale.

At the end of the day, it's a decent burger or sandwich, solid food, fair prices, but nothing that stands out. I think thier menu would need to make some serious changes before I would go back as the only thing really exemplary about the place is it's convenient location next to...