Iron Horse — Restaurant in Royal Oak

If I could give service zero stars, I really would. My friends and I had been wanting to try the Iron Horse for quite some time. We put it off, but when a friend came in from Florida we thought what a perfect time. As soon as we arrived for our reservation, our waiter, a man with sleeve tattoos on each arm, was just rude. As we said hi, how are you today, there was no reciprocation and he was very rushed. At the time, we were one of three tables on the main floor. We asked him if we could have a couple minutes to look at the drink menu. He looked annoyed and sighed. He came back after 10 minutes and we said we were still trying to decide and could we please have just two more minutes. He sighs yet again and says well it’s going to be longer than two minutes and walks off. We look at each other and discuss what could possibly be his issue. True enough, we waited almost 25 minutes for him to come back, each of us tried to flag him down during that time and he obviously ignored us. He comes back, we order an app and drink. When I tasted my drink, it was very bitter so when he came back to get our entree order, I asked if I could have a little more strawberry to curb the tartness. It was a Mexican mule that had strawberrry (as said in the menu). He goes, there’s none of that in there and just stares as me, so I go um, do you have a suggestion? Annoyed yet again, he goes, ginger beer. I know that’s not sweet but at this point we’re all just done with his attitude so I agree. As we’re eating our app, the salsa and chips, my friend notices a blonde hair on my fork which is coming out of the salsa. Please keep in mind my friends and I are all brunettes. My friend says don’t even say anything just get new silverware and we’ll leave the salsa alone. God knows if something will be done to our food if we say anything. When he comes back with entrees, I ask him for some new silverware. He walks away and goes, maybe. I then said what, You’ve got be kidding angrily. He then says we have a finite amount of silverware and our cooks are already doing dishes. I say well I have blonde hair on mine. Then my friend says there’s silverware on the table behind us just grab that. Then all of sudden he brings silverware and says that he didn’t mean that come out how he said it. Then after that, another 1/2 hour later, he brings extra gingerbeer as discussed above. Service was atrocious and inexcusable. What a bummer on the beginning of our entire night. We won’t ever come back, which sucks because we have a girl’s night once a month and it could have been a staple for us. I’ve attached a pic...

My wife and I dined here for a date night dinner recently (have been here a lot over the years) and have to say we were pretty disappointed, as it seems the quality of the food at Iron Horse is slipping compared to what we've experienced in the past there.

We ordered the chips with salsa and queso for an appetizer, and we are 99% sure it was literally just the cheap microwaveable tostitos brand queso and basic salsa from a jar you can get in the grocery aisle at any 7/11, which they just dumped in a couple serving dishes and charged us $10 for. Yikes...

We considered cutting our losses and skipping ordering main dishes worrying it would be more of the same, but ultimately decided to stick it out. Thankfully our mains were a different story - my wife ordered the cheesy grilled steak burrito and I had the sweet mexican pizza. Both were pretty solid in flavor - nothing life changing though. We always get the mexican mules here for drinks, and they never disappoint.

However later that night and into the next morning, both of our stomachs were really going through it. I'm gonna chalk it up to the microwave queso because everything else tasted decent.

The ambiance there is always great, and the owner/GM who's usually hanging out hosting or cleaning is always really friendly. Our waiter could have been a bit more friendly, but he wasn't bad at all. Overall it'll probably fall lower on our list of spots to go - I wouldn't say we're going to avoid it altogether, but at the very least we'll be sticking away from ordering the...

We had our first visit here for lunch around 12:45pm on a Saturday. My friend had a $50 gift card she had won (more on that at the end). We were greeted and seated right away. The server came to bring water and ask if we wanted any other drinks right away. I wish I got his name! He was on top of everything and friendly. He answered questions about the menu and went to ask an ingredient detail he was unsure of. I ordered the Esquites with chicken (minus onion), which was delicious. My friend got the IHRO Salad which she was also very happy with. The atmosphere was nice and it was an all around positive experience! The manager? also came by during our meal to see if everything was ok with our meal! So about the gift card... my friend had won over a year ago at the Oakland County Sheriffs Golf Outing & she handed it to the server to pay. The manager? came back to ask about the card. Apparently something wasn't activated properly, so he couldn't even find a record of it. We asked if they expired? No, they don't. He came back again after checking and said that it wasn't in their records, but he would activate it himself and honor it anyway! That was awesome. He did not have to do that. Needless to say, lunch only used up half of the card, so we still have another $25 to use next time. I can't wait to try something else. This is a great place to have a nice meal. It's also not too noisy like some places I've been. 5* stars...