Silver Harbor Brewing Company — Restaurant in Saint Joseph

This may be a long one but I had probably the worst experience I’ve had in my adult life at silver harbor brewing in Saint Joseph. Now I want to preface this by saying this was probably my favorite restaurant. It was my number one go to restaurant. Any time someone asks about good food in at joe I send them to silver harbor. Great beer, and amazing food. My problem lies with the management. Last Thursday I called ahead to inquire about outside seating because this would be the first time taking my young children to a restaurant since the pandemic started and that would be safest I was also with a family from out of town with young children. They told me that it’s best to get on the wait list and it would be 20-30 minute wait. We got on the list and waited then headed to the restaurant. We got there and waited 20 minutes and by this point it had been 45 minutes since we got on the wait list. We got a call from the restaurant saying it would be another 20-30 minutes beyond the 45 minutes we already waited and they told us it was because there were people already cashed and aren’t leaving the seats. We asked about take out and they said 20-30 minutes so we decided to wait for the tables because my 3 year old had her heart set on eating out because she hasn’t been in public all year due to covid. I asked about a couple free appetizers for the inconvenience because because we’ve now been now standing outside waiting for an hour and a half with screaming kids. No apology was offered and when asked about the appetizers the hostess fought me on it and sent me to the manager. When talking to the manager he was dismissive and fought me on it(no apologies)but eventually gave in. We waited another 20 minutes for the tables with literal crying kids saying “I want to go to the restaurant”. After 2 hours I got fed up enough and just ordered take out. Myself and my friends ordered $170 worth of food despite the situation when we could have walked away. After 15 more minutes the people outside finally left. I went inside to see if it was too late to change my order to eat in and the hostess said “no youre order is almost ready” well 10 minute left goes by and still no food. I asked to talk to the manager. If I thought it was bad before here’s where it really took a turn. The manager literally walked up and basically started berating me from the get go. I explained to him the situation and told him I know he can’t just kick other guests out of seats but we would like to sit down now and the hostess told us no after being here for 2.5 hours. I told him so far the service has been appalling and I could have left bad reviews and walked away and not ordered anything and he goes “I don’t appreciate you threatening me” and became hostil and defensive despite my cool demeanor. He stated “we’ve done all we can” and pretty much if I didn’t like we can kick rocks. HERES THE KICKER. We get our orders and the bill and come to find out they charged us for the appetizers we wanted and gave us 2 free random appetizers we didn’t ask for, so we still ended up paying for appetizers. So we didn’t in fact get anything for the inconvenience. We ended up buying beer to go and 7 meals adding up to $170. We spent good money with that place despite the terrible experience and being berated by management. I’m not even angry about the experience I’m actually saddened. I’m disappointed I feel I can no longer go to my favorite restaurant and recommend to others. It’s been 4 days, I’ve tried to call the owner twice with no call back. I waited to hear from the owner before posting this but based on his manager I’m not sure he cares either. That will be my last time at silver harbor and no food is worth that kind...

Here’s the punchline: We had to wait 3 HOURS TO EAT, without a single apology! Our visit occurred on 10/9/2020, arrived at 6:30pm, we are not from here so we relied on yelp to help us pick a spot to eat. I usually do not give much weight on negative reviews and I usually just chalk it up to a demanding client and I give the server/restaurant the benefit of the doubt.

We checked in online and it said 30-45 minute wait for a party of 6. After 45 minutes I went in to ask about an estimated time, the hostess said there’s only two tables that can seat a group of 6. I asked about the estimate and she said I don’t know, they have their food already. I used to work as a server, you can definitely estimate how long a table will take.... after another 45 minutes I sent my husband in to ask about an estimated time as I was fuming and did not want to be mean. We kept seeing parties of 2-4 people go in and out through out this wait. Mind you we are at 90 minutes of waiting -5 this point. He very kindly asked about a wait and we got an estimate of 30 minutes and he has to ask if there were two tables we could push together, which only had a 20 minute wait.

We finally were seated after asking if we could crowd around a patio table and they finally sat us after almost 2 hours of waiting. We already knew what we wanted and were ready to order drinks, appetizers, and food because we were starving at this point.

The appetizer arrived at the same time as waters. After 45 minutes of giving our order to the server for 2 burgers, 2 veggie burgers, and fish and chips, we ask to speak with a manager. She comes out and says the food was put in 15 minutes ago, which was impossible because we gave our food order to the server as soon as we sat down with the drink order. Needless to say the manager comes out says “I don’t know what happened, but they are waiting on the fries. Well take off 15% of the check”. Finally we get our food, it was the kitchen runners that serve it, then the server comes out 5 minutes later asking if we need anything, there were no condiments.

Overall, food was good but the terrible service left a sour taste in our mouth. Needless to say we weren’t very hungry at 9:30pm. The easiest thing that did not cost a thing was an apology for the wait, forgetting the food order, delay in getting our food. No one ever said I’m sorry, or I apologize. We are not jerks so we did leave a tip, and were never rude to any of the staff. We won’t come back here ever again, due to...

I'm local, and I eat downtown fairly regularly. This is my all-time favourite place down there, especially for lunch since you can have a few drinks and then walk across the side street and sober up at the tea shop in The Market! They have two sours, Grandma's Favourite Recipe and Happy Accidents, both of which are fantastic, with Grandma's Favourite easily being my favourite local beer. My parents are big fans of their hefeweizen, So Heffen Good. The cocktails are also always good, although be warned that the 'sangria' they offer is strong as all get-out. Their food is every bit as good as the beer, too. I've tried many of their different dishes over the time I've been going, and it's never disappointed! Last week I got the poutine burger, and devoured it like my life depended on it! Just be aware that you WILL get gravy on your hands, they don't skimp on ingredients! The time before that, my friend and I split their Tuscany dip, and it was phenomenal! I've had similar dips at much higher pricepoints, and this one was every bit as good as what you'll find for twice as much. Their Steelhead Trout Florentine is actually one of the things to start me off trying to cook for myself, it was so good I had to try to get something close! It's a strong contender for best fish dish I've ever had. Off the top of my head, I've also had the maple pecan chicken, the chicken and waffles, and the shrimp and grits, all were amazing! It's also definitely worth it to upgrade to the truffle fries if that's something you're into. The service has always been incredibly friendly, as well! I remember last year, we went for drinks after the chili cook-off downtown, and they were serving oysters (which I believe they do once a year) The poor server was also responsible for catering a party at the same time, but he still served us quickly and happily! Every other time I've gone has matched that sort of quality. And just as an aside, because it's important to me, the bathrooms are always very clean! Seriously, if you're looking for a nice place to get dinner and drinks, either alone or with some buddies, Silver Harbor is the...