Bar Louie — Restaurant in Royal Oak

Yikes! Why is Curt so "curt"????

Royal Oak, MI location is prit-tee BAD and Curt the Manager seems to be driving all the patrons away!

Food/Spirits are "ok" - TGI Fridays Houlihans Bennigans of the 2000s. Bartender poured up a great Havana Classic Mojito. All Nighter Burger was good. The candied bacon was just right, and the patty was cooked to my requested temp. Just praying that someone else other than Curt is overseeing health and cleanliness standards where the food is stored and prepared. If his dining room/bar manner is the same in the kitchen, then everyone is at risk.

Atmosphere - GROSS!!! The Restaurant smelled so badly of restrooms/sewer. This is not due to a local leak or construction project nearby. This is from poor upkeep, and if/when any cleaning miraculously takes place here, the same products and tools are being used interchangeably between restrooms, kitchen, dining room. 3 tables and one bar couple dinned the entire time that I was there. DEAD. No music playing, and the tvs were playing infomercials. Tuesday @ 3:30pm is not an excuse - other establishments in the downtown RO area were already buzzing with afternoon happy hour guests, late lunchers, etc. I walked into Bar Louie, and thought I had walked into a morgue!! Makes sense though...Curt is clearly a driver in pushing business away.

Service - the bartender, 20s male 3:30PM Tuesday 2/20/24 - FABULOUS!!! The smile, the kindness, the fun, genuine, authentic. I can only hope that he explores some of the more desirable and local joints in the area for his future/options. Way-to-go YOU Mr. Bartender, the only positive part of my experience.

Management - Bar Louie RO, if Curt is an example of your hospitality standards and the face of your restaurant/bar/club...then just throw in the towel and close down. There is a defect somewhere, and this miserable abusive SLOPPY man is gainfully employed by Bar Louie RO and somehow supported in his role by upper management. Curt the Manager on duty was nowhere to be found until A+ bartender needed him for some point of sale adjustments. This guy comes out of the swinging door looking as if he couldn't be more angry annoyed and irritated for having to come out to the dining room. He made his adjustments in the POS system, looked at, table touched, or acknowledged ZERO guests, except for the poor take-out delivery driver that he was verbally abusing and accosting because as he said..."doordash is not my problem get out of my restaurant." Curt, is Bar Louie YOUR restaurant?!?! We all depend on delivery drivers in 2024. Do you treat service staff and Bar Louie staff the way you treated this food delivery person? His uniform/clothing, facial expression, body language...abysmal. I'm sure overall KPI results mirror this guys misery. We left feeling so bad for the kind hourly staff members (bartender and person who ran our food with really...

My husband and I went on a Tuesday night. The hostess was very friendly as were all the servers we walked past. Our particular server was new. He had a fantastic personality and did a great job… but I have some suggestions to make his life as well as the next table he serves easier. If you’re not fully versed on the various menus, carry a small note pad with a cheat sheet on it. He had to go back to the bar/kitchen to ask fellow employees several questions regarding availability of items (cheese options, beer options etc). We were in no hurry so it wasn’t a big deal but he def got his steps in going back and forth. My other suggestion is to write down the order. I only ordered 3 toppings on the chicken sandwich (lettuce, tomato, provolone) and he asked me 3 times to say it. When it was brought out I got lettuce, tomato, red onion and no cheese lol. So close. It was late so probably didn’t need the cheese anyway and the onion was easily set aside. The chicken was really tender, the bun was nice and fresh and lightly grilled, lettuce was also fresh. However, there was so much oregano in the seasoning they put on the chicken it was all I could taste. It was like taking a big bite of oregano, couldn’t do it. My husband let me have a bite of his burger and it was fantastic. Cooked exactly like he asked which doesn’t always happen with burgers. Server came back and I asked if I could switch it up and get the same as my husband because the chicken tasted like straight oregano. Server went back talked to his manager a couple of times and the manager told the server that there was no oregano on the chicken and they use the same seasoning for both the chicken and the burger. Double checked the burger, as we didn’t taste the seasoning, and there was no seasoning on the burger. How am I so sure it was oregano? Funny story actually. Long story long, about 2 months ago me, my husband, my brother in law and my sister in law played a game where you blind fold someone and let them smell and taste 4 random spices and who ever guesses the most right wins. The spices were paprika, cardamom, cinnamon…..and oregano. So no sir…that’s oregano. I’ve never heard of an oregano allergy so it’s not a huge deal in the grand scheme of the public. However, the timing of being in a recent spice smell-off game and then having someone tell me it’s not oregano…nah uh. My husband and I had a good laugh because obviously we didn’t share this oregano story with them at the time. Anyways, they made the chicken seasoning free and it was delicious. Will...

If I could give zero stars I would. Husband and I went in for dinner around 5pm on Sunday to eat and have drinks before walking around the festival. Got seated right away as there was only a few tables seated. That should've been the first clue. We waited about 15 minutes for a server to come get a drink order- second clue. He then disappeared for another 15-20 minutes. We were seated in front of the bar pick up window so after a while noticing that it wasn't even made I went to question whether he put the order in. After looking like she was absolutely bothered that she had to get off her cell phone the bartender looked at the long list of tickets on the printer and said "yeah like over 15 minutes ago" then she asked me "were they made? " the bartender asked the customer if the drinks were made. Dumb. Then she asked if I wanted then made. Even more dumb. I didn't answer her and sat down. The server finally came back over with the drinks after another few minutes and I questioned him why he wouldn't have been asking her where the drinks were. You know what he said?? "I didn't want to bother her". I've never heard anything more idiotic. Anyway we decided we didn't want to stay there and left. We got chased out the restaurant by the server saying we had to pay for the drinks we didn't even touch. We declined. He then got the manager- Bob- who also said we had to pay. With the threat of the police being called we ended up paying for the drinks which were ridiculously priced and gave Bob an earful. Although we were very very upset with the experience, after a while thinking about it, I understand why we still had to pay for the drinks. He did also not charge us for the appetizer we ordered. We should've asked to speak with the manager and give them a chance to correct it but when you just get so mad over crappy service, you just want to leave. We'll...