Mac's Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Rossville

This is a tale of two visits. I am sharing this in hopes that this restaurant can find consistency in their food as it has much potential. The first visit was a really good 4, almost 5 star visit. The meatball special and all of the share plates except one were outstanding. Winners were the fresh beets, the heirloom tomatoes, and the onion dip. The loser was the okra dish - which essentially was a few tiny pieces of over-fried okra on a really good beet hummus - so obviously misnamed dish. The second visit was barely a 2 star visit only saved by the excellent atmosphere and good service. The food was completely off and there were no specials only leaving two proteins on the menu (a $38 1/2 chicken alacarte and a $28 trout). Our out-of-town guests were confused how a restaurant would function with such limited meat protein options on a Friday nite and it was too late for us to find a table available elsewhere. The trout was absolutely terrible and looked nothing like the picture shown on their social media. It was an extremely small and over salted piece of trout with some trout roe. The trout was very fishy and tasted as if it had been cooked earlier and reheated. Other misses were the peas (room temperature tasteless peas mixed with tasteless quinoa. This is supposed to be farm to table and we were wondering which local farm grows quinoa?), tasteless cucumbers (sliced cucumber with some hot sauce drizzled on it), and melon (a few melon pieces with a few slices of cucumber and a few chunks of cheese). The tomatoes and the onion dip was spot-on again. The bar menu needs some attention. A few drinks are good (homemade tonic! Don't order the rum drink...) but there is an issue that they do not offer an open bar. This means that you can only order the specials on the drink list...nothing else....and they will not even substitute vodka in the gin and tonic. They don't even offer tea. The excellent building with tons of character with plenty of parking makes Mac's special when they are on their game in the kitchen. It's worth the drive away from downtown for ease of parking in a really cool space. It's unfortunate that they plan...

Update; the heirloom tomato special currently running is exceptional.

Original review: The atmosphere is a good attempt at rustic decor, and they have a meadery on-site. We were pleased with the level of comfort, and it put us in the right mood for our experience. 5 stars there.

Service was pretty much perfect. Knowledgeable on the menu and willing to pull the crafter over to answer our questions about Mead selections. Suggested their prix fix "date night" menu to my wife and I. It was a good selection of courses, but we had our eyes on some of the other dishes, so we declined. It was a good price point, however, so check it out. The bartender/Mead crafter offered us a flight option to sample all the meads on the menu, so we went with that.

This place has an ever-changing menu of locally sourced foodstuffs, so we chose Shishito peppers in labneh and tomato jam to start. Good, but not exceptional. It was a safe choice for us because we both knew we enjoyed shishitos. House-made pasta with ground lamb, pesto, cream, and herbs was the best thing I've eaten in a while. While most dishes will start off tasting amazing, your mouth usually gets tired of it at some point where it just tastes good but not like that first taste. This lamb pesto pasta was excellent from the first bite to the last. We also went with a chicken of the woods mushroom in grits with sorghum butter, mizuna, and flowers that was stellar in execution as well. We finished on the challah whiskey bread pudding with apples and frozen custard that was very good and satisfying but almost a letdown after the lamb pasta and chicken of the woods dishes. Those stood out. I can not recommend the lamb pesto pasta enough. It is now a craving, and I don't get those often. I will have to attempt to duplicate...

When I heard Mac's Kitchen and Bar was closing (but it appears they are just relocating), I wanted to book their five-course New Year's Eve dinner to make sure I wasn't missing out. Their socials have such amazing pictures, and reviews have salivating praises. I was really looking forward to this dinner, and I had high hopes since the price was $85 a person.

The first course was a trout dip, which was okay, not a ton of flavor. There was a super faint flavor of tuna (never had trout, maybe it's similar). We did eat all of it. Next course was a single baked oyster. Third course was a plate of 3-4 whole shrimp with garlic butter. I didn't like having to peel the shrimp with my hands, but the shrimp didn't taste like anything, even in the butter. Fourth was a very small portion of steak, carrot puree, and two undercooked potato rounds. Again, it was kind of tasteless. There were too many bites of steak that were all fat and inedible. All the food so far was highly underwhelming and disappointing. The food looked nothing like the pictures we saw at all. It was kind of bland, honestly. The fifth course was a brownie with ice cream, which was decent. After all of this, we were still hungry. We ended up getting McDonald's on the way home to feel like we had eaten something.

I also don't think there were any servers. The manager seemed to be the only one helping many full tables, and it took a very long time between courses and getting the check.

$200 is a lot to us, and we really wish we either had a chance to know the entire menu before starting, or left before the third course. It's disappointing. I would want to try again once they relocate, but I'm not sure I would...