HopCat — Restaurant in Royal Oak

Arrived at Hopcat Royal Oak and was seated right away as the restaurant appeared pretty empty for a Friday night. My friend and I ordered the appetizer sampler. which we were told was going to take longer than normal because they were so busy. We were first brought wings, told the runner that is not what we ordered. Our waiter then informed us that they had to remake the app sampler because the oil in the fryer was bad and burnt the food. App sampler finally came out and was not worth the $16.95 as the three wings clearly tasted frozen, the cheese dip did not come with the pretzels. There was 4 mini corn dogs which again clearly frozen and the cheese curds tasted nothing like cheese and more sweet with a batter like a French toast stick. I asked the waiter his opinion on the steak frites and I was told Since the restaurant was so busy the steak probably wouldn't come out the way I want it cooked. again I'm looking around a fairly empty establishment. I went with the prickleback sandwich sub fried chicken instead of grilled and my friend got mac and cheese. Her mac and cheese arrived watery and I was served a grilled chicken sandwich with no fries, I told the runner this was the incorrect order to which he went back and grabbed the correct plate. The fried chicken on my sandwich was black and clearly over fried. Just looked like a hunk of black burnt batter. As I was inspecting the chicken our waiter approached me and said "when I see people looking at the chicken like that I usually come check on them" which did not make me feel good about eating this food as clearly there has been issues before. I did try it and told him that it was bitter and burnt. I told him I did not want a replacement but just a side of fries would be fine to which he responded "well that is considered a replacement" I got a side a fries plain as the sauce was forgotten and I had to ask for that and those were the best thing we ate of everything we ordered. Overall just would not come back here. The food was not worth the money spent.

UPDATE: After reading the response from Kaleb Willis, as he asked I called hopcat royal oak on Monday 4/7/25 Both lines that I called had no answer. I left a voicemail with my name number and why I was calling. I called a second time on 4/10/25 and again no answer. I have not received a phone call back so I would 100 percent never come back. DO...

Wow, it's been a while since I've had such disrespectful service. I am one to always give people the benefit of the doubt, but the bartender on 9pm Saturday night shift was completely unprofessional.

Greeters at door were nice. Sat down at the bar. Bartender comes over asks what we want, we said just waters please. Then the bartender comes over asks if ready to order, and we ordered. When I said my order, he didn't even say anything and just entered the order, there was about a 5 second pause and I said, oh and can I please switch out the fries for a different side."

He looked extremely annoyed and then replied saying "yeah but it would have been nice if you told me that before I entered it"..... He looked at me like I had just said the most annoying thing that evening. Uhhh.... I honestly thought he was joking, but after seeing him stare with a blank face, I realized he wasn't... I then said, "sorry I didn't realize we werent still ordering?" (Usually a server says okay thanks or acknowledges they heard their order). He then mumbled something and annoyingly started pressing the computer screen and looked completely annoyed to be doing his job - took him about 15 seconds to switch the side (tough, grueling work).

Guy was completely disrespectful for pretty much no reason, acted annoyed we even ordered anything. After our food got to us, he never once asked how it was or if he could get anything, had to ask a different bartender for a fork and napkins. The other bartender, was doing all the work from what I could see. At the end of the meal, he didn't offer to split checks and just gave a combined check (2 people sitting at bar eating a burger).

He did, when handing the checks, mumble "have a great night"... Most words he said since he got I asked to change my side.

The food was excellent, but what on earth are your standards for service?

Doubt I'll be back - maybe don't work in service industry if you're going to talk to customers like...

Worst restaurant service I have ever experienced. We were seated immediately and this was not surprising because it was the middle of the day and the restaurant was absolutely empty. However, it took 10 minutes for our waitress to even acknowledge us and take our drink orders. It took another 10 minutes for us to get those drinks and place our food orders. This would have been fine if the restaurant was busy, however, as previously mentioned; nobody was dining there. Our waitress was talking to some guy at the front counter rather than serving us. Food was all fine and came out fast. We waited 25 minutes after we finished our food to be given our bill. When we realized how long we had been there waiting for the check, we decided to walk up to the front (where our waitress was still standing and talking to that same guy) the guy then told us that he would have her get it out for us in a second. She rudely handed us the bill and we immediately gave it back to her with a $20 bill. She asked if we wanted change, and of course we did. I’m all about tipping but, a 50% tip on a $10 bill of just fries and water? seriously?! She then proceeded to take our money to the register, set it down, and forget about it for 15 minutes. Not even exaggerating, we watched that money just sit. She then came back to our table and told us that “it will be just a minute on our change” because she “has other tables to deal with” we then tried to ask to just pay with card, since she was too busy to cash us out. she then completely ignored us and walked away. We again had to go up to the front and ask if we could switch to card, as we had been waiting there for over an hour. She eventually came back over to us with the biggest attitude ever. she shoved our money back at us and begrudgingly took our card. this was absolutely ridiculous. We ended up spending an hour and a half in the restaurant, when all we wanted was a quick basket of fries. Do not come here if you...