The Butler — Restaurant in Saugatuck

Atrocious customer service! I called two days before a 40 person party was coming in just to give them a heads up (because they don’t take reservations … per on line.) was told “The schedule is what it is and we would just have to come and wait in line and we couldn’t go upstairs until 430.” (Yes this was a red flag but thought maybe someone was just having a bad day.) Shared with my party we would need to stand in line and half decided to go elsewhere. We arrived just after 4 (figuring we would be standing in a line to get in) and were told we could go inside the main building and sit at bar. At 430 we went upstairs and were asked if we were the party of 40???? I said I had called etc and you said no reservations so assumed we would not be seated together? They said we were prepping for you and we could sit in the area with silverware (4 tables). I literately thought they were referencing a different party that somehow was allowed a reservation. We then attempted to scoot together three tables and was told with ATTITUDE “they were not going to re-arrange their floor plan to accommodate us because then everyone would want that and that we had to move the tables back for the servers as it was their policy.’ Mind you there was no one else in the immediate area (and it continued so the entire time we were there.) We had two servers that proved very capable of handling our party. However, Management was Rude, unprofessional and severely lacking in Customer Service and friendliness. Mgr claimed “I was told I could not move tables when I originally called’ ???? This was ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE we never got to a point of discussing tables because they refused my reservation attempt so why would we talk about table placement?? Frankly, they acted like they could care less to have our business. On a positive note, The food was good but the rudeness of the ‘management’ is SEVERELY lacking and staff seemed fearful of her and kept apologizing. One person in our party really wanted a burger but they have a very different & limited menu for upstairs. He asked if he could go downstairs and order from the bar and bring it up himself. He was told no burgers upstairs. (Mind you he was going to wait downstairs and bring it up himself and was not asking them to do anything) ???? Apparently you can only eat pizza, appetizers and salads upstairs?? I stand 100% behind this review in its entirety. I realize it’s hard nowadays to get good service but felt like they went OUT OF THEIR WAY unnecessarily to be rude for absolutely no reason?? They lost all our future business but honestly I think they could care less. 🤷🏻‍♀️. I would suggest you go a block down to a place called The Barge. They had ZERO issues accommodating our unannounced 45 person party earlier in the day. They also offered a full menu and VERY friendly staff. A smaller venue at The Barge but kindness and customer service...

Avoid, perhaps. My husband and I saw this place from our parking spot, saw that it was very popular and decided to go there. We knew we were going to wait but little did we know. Went to the hostess and was told it would be twenty minutes. So we went to the upstairs bar and find a spot and had a good drink and a nice view of the lake. Twenty minutes turned to thirty then to forty. We decided to go check with the hostess and was told there are the ahead of me so another ten minutes or so. Meanwhile we saw others arrive and get seated right away. Hmmmmm. So we satat the downstairs bar. The bartender there was very friendly, brought us water and menus. Then my phone rings to go check with the hostess as out table is ready. This is now about an hour of waiting. At our table the waitress is very friendly, takes a drink order and comes back quickly. We order food, a hamburger for him, peel and eat shrimp and a bowl of clam chowder for me. Easy, right? 40 minutes later still no food. The waitress was very sorry and apologized. The manager, I think, came over to tell us how sorry he was and our food was coming up right away. We did not believe him, told him so and said what could he do to make things right, I said bring the burger, since that should not take 40 minutes to prepare. He said it'll be out in three minutes. Five minutes later our food finally comes. The food is ok, on the whole. The burger was nothing special, the shrimp needed more seasoning but I will say the chowder was delicious. When our plates are cleared in thinking the manager is going to talk to us again but no, the waitress comes over and asks "Are you ready for your bill?"

I'm not sure about anyone else's experience but when there has been this kind of wait, the restaurant usually comps something off the bill, if not the entire meal. Nope not here. We should have left earlier to a restaurant just down the street, but no. Next time we are in the area, guess where we...

First read then look at the pics followed by make your own decision if you do eat here.

The place is outrageously beautiful with lake Kalamazoo as your backdrop. Go sit upstairs, the patio, and enjoy the breeze. It does gets windy up there. Waitresses and waiters were dealing with tumbling and flying cups. A waitress dropped a table's order of wings. Unsure how that happen. Couldn't imagine the wind was that strong. Did see a lot of wait staff, some are in training. Our wait staff was friendly.

We ordered the Cajun shrimp pizza and the fried perch sandwich.

The perch lack seasoning and being such a thin fillet, it's tough to control the frying process. It was too fried and dried. Onion rings were absolutely disappointing. The batter was so thick, tasted more like cornmeal batter. Please see pics. The manager told us that these rings were not even made in-house. Straight from the vendor. They just fried and served and wanted to charge $3.00 upcharge! They told us they'll inform the vendor on the quality issue.

The pizza is tough to describe. The shrimp was well seasoned, unfortunately, ruined by the cheese used for the pizza. The manager described later that there were 4 cheeses- cheddar, mozzarella, Parmesan and Monterey Jack! I guess these folks just throw it all in. The cheese texture was odd and not at all soft cheesy. More like clumpy cheese. Please don't even tell true Italians that they did that to make pizza. It is such an insult to Italian pizza. Trust me when I did have seafood pizza in Italy. So, putting shrimp in pizza is not off at all. It's the cheese they use,very odd combination! The dough was more like bread consistency not pizza light and airy. Overall, very disappointing for $16!

So, go there and drink or just get the appetizer not real meal. But,be prepared to pay for the drinks, pricing pretty steep. Most come here for the view.

Please like if you appreciate the...