Lewis & Clark's Restaurant — Restaurant in Saint Charles

Yesterday, while enjoying Missouri’s statehood celebration (at the 1st State Capitol Site), we decided to try and eat across the street at Lois & Clark’s. We noticed that they had open air tables, outside, on the third floor. A wonderful little band was playing across the street for the celebration, so we thought being able to eat outside would be great as we could then also still hear the band! There was only two other group sitting outside, so there was seemingly lots of availability/empty tables that we observed from the street. I went inside and asked if we could sit outside. First, I was told by one of the hostesses that they only accommodate parties of four outside (and we were a party of five). I then asked if it was possible to simply pull a chair around to the side of the table and was told that the tables were bolted down. …So I clarified I just needed to pull one chair over (not a whole table)— to which I was told that would be a fire hazard. So I went back outside and informed my group. My husband wondered why they couldn’t just seat us at two tables then. So back inside I went, and this time, there was a gentleman in a collared-shirt standing at the hostess station (presumably the manager). I explained our situation again and asked if we would be able to just break up our party into two groups, or 2 tables (so, essentially three people at one table and two people at the other). I assumed that would not be an issue. They were not very busy, as it was a Wednesday night, at around 7:20 pm. (Side note: they don’t close until 8:30 pm, so plenty of time for a party of 5 to be accommodated). Anyway, to my surprise, the gentleman said, “No we cannot do that”. I waited for a minute for him to explain further, but when he did not, I said, “ May I ask why?” His rather unhelpful and unsympathetic reply was simply that, “they just don’t do that, and it is just their way of doing things”. ……Huh?! What difference would it make if we were sat one table or two??-when that just be like pulling two tables together in any other restaurant?? Is your way of doing things to not try and help seat paying customers in your restaurant?? At no point did they even try to come up with any other solutions… or even apologize, for that matter. So, as it turned out, they ended up getting zero tables from us! Way to go! Lol. We went down the road and enjoyed a nice meal at Salt and Smoke instead, where our party of 5 could be sat. The whole thing ended up rubbing our group the wrong way, so none of us plan to return in the future. Sad that that is the impression they chose to make with potential customers just trying to enjoy the atmosphere of...

Took my family and my parents here for my parents' 41st anniversary last night. We made a phone reservation around 3pm for a party of 7 at 6pm. The resturant called to confirm it about an hour later. We arrived a bit early, about 5:30 and popped in to let them know we were there. Host told us we could not be sat early (no problem) and that since it was busy we could not wait either. They suggested we look at the nearby shops (all of which were closed.) We occupied ourselves for 20 or so minutes then came back at 5:50, expecting them to be in the process with our second floor table for 7. The host told us they were not ready for us still and that we would now be on the first floor right by the door (cold wind every time the doors opened.) I let the host know we were celebrating my parents 41st anniversary and he raised his eyebrow and said 'yeah, good for you'. Very unpleasant. We waited another 15 minutes, it appeared that they were actively waiting for another party to get up and leave so we could have their table. The other party seemed to be in no hurry. While we waited the host phone called a party who were supposed to be there at 5:30 to see if they were still coming. At 6:20 we were finally sat. Waiter took drink orders (my sangria took almost 20 minutes) then he took food orders. He informed us that the soup of the day was New England Clam Chowder but when I asked to order it he told me the soup of the day was Brocolli Cheddar. I suppose he was confused. It took an hour after ordering to recieve our food. We had ordered, 3 filets (1 well, 1 mid well, and one mid rare) all three came mid-rare), 1 chicken teriyaki, one pepper steak, and a cajun shrimp. The waiter, while as attentive as he was able, seemed heavily overburdened. We did not bother to try returning anything to the kitchen since they were clearly very busy. The shrimp was not cajun, the pepper steak did not appear to be peppered at all (though she said it tasted fine), there was no issue with the chicken, but 2 of the filets were very undertemped. The waiter offered free dessert to the anniversary couple (brownies with raspberry sauce) which was very nice but he could not have known that my mother is diabetic and my father is allergic to raspberry. So neither of them could enjoy it. Altogether not a dinner worth $250.

Will not return...

This restaurant has potential but needs Gordon Ramsay’s guidance.

There are plenty of seating choices available and the location in historic St. Charles is good! The place is decorated in alignment with the historical area. The second floor of the restaurant smells strange though, a little moldy or something. We didn’t spend time on the other levels so I can’t speak to those.

The food was mediocre at best. Maybe a C minus or a D. We had the chicken salad sandwich and chili special, a club sandwich, and Caesar salad. The chili was the best thing we ate, but not anything special to write home about. Chicken salad sandwich was very basic, not flavorful. The club sandwich had just 1 slice of each type of meat, and 1 slice of cheese! The Caesar salad had wilted lettuce—not crisp—and not enough dressing. The quality of these food items doesn’t match up with the price. At $15 per person, you have to serve a higher quality of food and provide more flavor, or slash the menu prices dramatically. The lemonade is Minute Maid— another sign of low quality.

The menu is odd. There were a lot of Cajun and Southwest-type items on the menu (we didn’t order those), which is good for people who like spicy food…or Southwest food….but this isn’t Louisiana or the Southwest! I doubt they matched up to those cuisines, as the simple American items that we ordered didn’t.

The service was okay. The waitress answered our questions about the menu when we ordered, and brought lunch in a timely fashion. However, she didn’t refill our water at all. You shouldn’t ever have to ask for...