Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Saint Peters

UPDATE 11/9/24

• The corporate office contacted me to give them another opportunity. We initially planned to visit the Town & Country location, as our previous experience at St. Peters was unsatisfactory. However, we decided to be fair and reevaluate the actual location that disappointed us initially. This experience was significantly more favorable.

ORIGINAL REVIEW = 2 Stars My wife & I visited for the 1st time as a special treat for our 20 year wedding anniversary and it was one of the worst experiences we’ve had at a restaurant in a long awhile.

Walking in, I felt like I went to an upscale Old Country Buffet. The lobby area is a large gift shop with a wine tasting bar that wraps around the outside of the gift shop. The seating area looked like a low scale cafe. We got seated next to a wall with a small 2 person table. Felt like I was at a doughnut shop. The waiter was pretty basic, considering this is supposed to be an upscale restaurant. He made some suggestions, let us have a small wine tasting that all guest get for free then he took our drink order. The drinks took about 10 minutes to come out and the place wasn’t that busy. He gave us a small piece of pretzel bread as a starter like most restaurants do with bread baskets. I’d have to say, that was the best part of the meal, sadly.

Starting the order for the meal, the waiter made more basic suggestions for selections for our meal. He kept staring off as he spoke to us, we felt like he never really engaged with us during our visit. He also never told us Happy Anniversary even though we called ahead with reservations stating we are celebrating a milestone anniversary. The label for our table even said, “20th anniversary!” After my wife ordered the surf and turf steak medallions and ahi tuna, the manager came out 5 minutes later to tell us they ran out and she could sub for something else. She selected the grouper, then the manager said, “we ran out of that too since we order fresh everyday.” This is kind of ridiculous to me since we got there at 6pm for dinner, not later in the evening. She was then talked into getting the “large bacon wrapped shrimp” in place of her ahi tuna by the manager. I ordered the chicken & gnocchi.

When the food arrived, my gnocchi did not look appetizing at all. Such a lack of color to the plate, leaving it to the imagination of looking like something I won’t say on the review. My wife’s meal looked decent but we were sorely disappointed to see how small the “large” shrimp were. The waiter came by once during the meal to ask how it was, I stated it was decent. He walked away. He never filled our waters during the stay and we ran out within 20mins of being there.

As soon as our meal was finished (to the second), the waiter walks out with a dessert menu and asked if we wanted dessert or our check, “but no rush,” he says. It definitely felt like we were being rushed. I was sad to see this establishment did not take the opportunity to help us celebrate our milestone anniversary by offering maybe a small dessert on the house (not they we expect it, just would of been a nice gesture). Seemed like a lost opportunity for great service.

Finally, we received the check and the waiter still charged us for the ahi tuna! I asked if he could take that off the bill since it was substituted by such a small portion of shrimp. He came back with the menu to show us that surf & turf selections are all the same price. Wow, these people must be hard up for money being $100+ for 2 poor portions of decent tasting food. I see why with such poor service, they won’t be around long. Sad to see for our area. I hope a better brand buys them out someday because we’ll never return to this Cooper’s Hawk restaurant. The tip definitely showed how we felt about the experience. At least we gave him 10% even though we prefer to give 25%. But to be fair, he only gave us 5% of his ability to serve us.

We highly recommend celebrating your special days and hard earned...

I will start by saying I have been here multiple times for wine tastings, birthday dinners, and girl dinners but my recent experience was quite disappointing.

We came to celebrate a friend coming in from out of state and wanted to show her a good dining experience. We started off doing wine tasting at the front which went great as usual, unfortunately it went downhill when it came to the dining portion. We were seated and then had to wait about 5 minutes just to be greeted by our waitress. We ordered the wine samples and that took close to 15 minutes to get and then another 10-15 minutes when we ordered our actual bottle of wine. Although i understand at times it can get busy the restaurant was not full at this point so im unsure why it took so long to put a bottle of wine in the bucket and bring it out to us and of course the wait feels longer when you’re hungry.

As it was happy hour we ordered the tempura shrimp, shaved prime sliders, and truffle arancini. The arancini was lacking truffle flavor which was disappointing. It’s usually supposed to be stuffed inside but it seemed more like a ball of rice so we were very underwhelmed. The sliders were lukewarm but the shrimp was very good.

We then had to wait an additional 15+ minutes for our waitress to take our actual order. We ordered the shrimp and scallop risotto and the seasonal surf and turf which was steak and lobster with mashed potatoes and broccolini. The risotto had an overwhelming amount of vegetables it felt like it was a vegetable dish with rice added in not the other way around. The steak was more rare than medium and was lukewarm. It lacked flavor as well as the mashed potatoes. The broccoli was undercooked and almost too hard to chew. For $50 a plate I expected the food to be a lot better than it was. Our waitress didn’t check back in with us once we got our food and when she came in the end and saw our plates were pretty empty and that one needed a box it took her over 20 minutes to bring us our check.

I was pretty embarrassed by the dinner service as we had talked this place up as a nice upscale establishment where we could have the best of both worlds with wine tasting and great food together. Unfortunately the customer service and food quality was not up to par and left us disappointed. At this point I don’t think I’ll be back considering how low the quality of the food and the service e has dropped, I may have to stick to going to the other one when I’m...

First time visiting the new location. We called ahead for a reservation and were seated promptly. We were seated in the bar area at high tops and were told that's what was available. We were hoping for something a little more cozy since we called ahead. It felt like we were an afterthought. When my husband called for the reservation he was asked if we were celebrating anything and he replied "our anniversary". We definitely weren't expecting anything, but it literally wasn't ever brought up again. Not sure why it was asked? The server seemed fine toward the beginning of our meal but by the time we left he seemed genuinely annoyed when he dropped off the check. We hadn't asked for anything and really didn't require any attention so we don't know what we did. My husband got the filet, broccoli and mashed potatoes which were all delicious. I don't care for steak and I even liked it. My meal was the shrimp scampi dish and while it was good, definitely not worth $25. It was prepared fine and the portion was plenty for me to take some home. It just seems a little pricey for 5 shrimps and pasta. I went with the suggested pairing of wine which was a good choice. When I placed that order I confirmed with the server that it was the correct pairing, he replied "I don't really know" with a shrug. If you're coming for appetizers, get the egg rolls! You won't be disappointed! They were delicious and all three sauces were great too. The entry area has a small shop with unique gifts and kitchen/entertaining merchandise. There is also a tasting bar and a small cooler with chocolates and treats. We may come back but overall, wasn't a stellar experience. Kind of disappointed we chose here to celebrate our anniversary together. Our bill was well over $100 but we felt the experience lacked. Side note, the entry door doesn't seem like an entrance... we actually drove around the building once to find the "actual" door. It isn't clearly marked or seem like the front door to the restaurant. The bathrooms were nice and clean and the parking lot...