Kruse & Muer on Woodward — Restaurant in Royal Oak

09/05/2025 -- great meal! I think I just had one of the best meals (for me) at Kruse tonight. I'm trying to watch my carbs so I asked if the kitchen could make their steak tips appetizer, which is no longer on the menu. The kitchen did a great job with a 4oz filet, mushrooms, Boursin cheese and some sauce.

This should definitely be back on the menu!

I then ordered the blackened mahi that came with a jalapeño cream sauce that was fantastic.

11/1/2024 Update I'm always excited when pork chops show up on Kruse's fall menu, but this year I recommend you avoid both the honey balsamic bone-in pork chop and the shrimp and scallop dishes. The pork chop is so thin it can only be overcooked. I'm surprised whomever thought of it for the menu either thought it was a good idea or didn't QA the cuts to make sure they weren't uselessly thin.

In the end, the manager was professional and removed my meal (and soup) from the bill--which itself is good service, and our waitress was fantastic.

January 2024

Kruse and Muer is our reliable Friday night go-to. If you're looking for a reliable go-to for any day or night, I'll tell you why Kruse should be at the top of your list.

First, we don't go out to eat just for the food. We go for the service. I want the waitstaff to bring drinks, food, follow-up, CLEAR PLATES, refresh drinks, and be friendly. Kruse on Woodward does exactly that. If you do make it one of your regular stops, don't be surprised when the staff starts calling you by name, asks for your favorite drinks, and other staff (not just your waiter/waitress) stop by the table just to say, "Hi."

The food is solid. I don't think there's anything there I wouldn't order again--but I do have my favorites.

Every meal starts with fresh-backed bread. Get the bread. Don't be shy about smearing whipped butter on it. Just tear off a piece, butter it up, and enjoy. They'll keep bringing more loaves if you keep ordering them. Take one home.

I nearly always order the French Onion soup to start the meal. What I like about Kruse's French Onion is it's served hot. I think all soups should be served hot. Oh, and you can use a piece of bread to soak-up the broth at the end.

My wife nearly always gets the fish tacos. You can order it three different ways--one of them is blackened.

Other favorites are ANY seafood pasta, oysters, mussels (a couple different ways), ribs, and the best re-creation of Hudson's Maurice Salad I've had in the Detroit area.

And of course, if you get the mussels you can soak-up the broth with the bread.

We like to walk-in without reservations before 6PM and try to get seats at the bar. If not at the bar, then hi-tops near the bar. It's our favorite part of the restaurant because that's where we can follow games on the bar's TVs.

It's normally our first stop on Friday nights. Hope to see you there.

Pictured: dozen oysters,...

This was my second time here. The first one doesn't really count since it was an hour and a half to two hour wait and we left.

This time, the wait was 25 to 30 minutes.

The service was bad. The waitress got our drink order wrong, and never bothered to come check on us. The appetizer came out, and we still did not have silverware. It took several more minutes flag a different member of the waitstaff to get management. The silver came out the same time as our food, and we didn't touch the appetizer yet. And the silverware wasn't the cleanest. Mostly water stains, needed to be wiped before use.

There is not a formalized training program. I've managed a place like what this is trying to be. Waitstaff bus the tables as they go. Not all tables were set up for new people (ours missing silverware was only one example. Hostess seated a couple at the table behind us, and there was no place mat or silverware on the table. Hostess made customer wait at table while she got the table settings). The tables were bused and served by 2 different people, so it's not a one time thing.

The lack of formal training shows in how they buss the table. When I finished my meal, the waitress took the plates, and all my silverware, and bread plate. Even though we still had bread left. I once again had no way to put butter on it.

The place doesn't know if it is a bar or a restaurant. It is too crowded and too loud. If the Fire Marshall were to visit, I don't see how the place wouldn't be fined. The tables we were sat at were so close together that there was no room to walk between them. When our food was delivered, it blocked the whole aisle going to the bar, while being placed.

As a former bar / restaurant manager, it was clear that members of the staff didn't want to be there, and there is a lot that needs to be fixed with this restaurant.

I do not plan on going back for...

Went here to celebrate my mother’s birthday with family and friends and thought it would be a great choice, but was incredibly let down.

Service was incredibly slow for our apps and entrees. When we got bread the first time, we didn’t even receive any silverware. No big deal, but when we asked another staff to get it, it took a while to get them.

The appetizers of dynamite shrimp and stuffed mushrooms tasted good, but were small portions. Then the server kept bringing bread, so we knew we’d be waiting a long time (like an hour) for our main entrees.

Now for the entrees…almost everybody was excited to order the Caribbean dishes where you pick two entrees because of the variety it offered, BUT when we got the plates the food was such tiny portions we all thought it was a joke! For $28 a plate, each of us were completely disappointed. Only three small pieces of stuffed shrimp, tiny slivers of overcooked salmon or grilled mahi, microscopic piece of chicken, and a small scoop of coconut rice in the middle among our combo plates.

The server was friendly, but he never came once to apologize about the delay or showed sincerity. The overall experience was a major let down after spending over $200 on what was supposed to be a special night for my mother. We all left hungry and were very embarrassed for our friends who joined us so we had to eat more food at home.

At the end the server clearly failed to read our visual disappointment and still tried to encourage us to join the rewards program after we paid the check, saying something along the lines of joining the rewards program if we’ll be frequent diners in the future. I work in the restaurant industry, but this was an eye-opening experience for what is supposed to be an upscale...