LURE Restaurant — Restaurant in Sister Bay

I only chose this place because I was craving seafood and this was my family’s first time visiting the area. The first issue was the tiny parking lot. It took at least 10-15 minutes to find a spot. Very little parking for a tourist spot. I made a reservation and our table was ready right away. We dined outside. The patio area was enclosed with trees and had a very relaxing ambience. I was appreciative of this because the downtown area had some event going on so it was chaotic around the restaurant. We had 2 adults and 2 children in my party. We ordered the crispy bread and potstickers. The potstickers were definitely not fresh. They looked like they came from the freezer section at Costco, and the sauce was just soy sauce. Noodles and co. has better potstickers. The crispy bread was warm and baked just right, very delicious. My daughter and I ordered the lobster tails. The lobster was overcooked and chewy. The butter had no flavor, it was simply melted butter. The red skin mashed potatoes were cold and had no flavor, even after pouring the melted butter on it. The second side was the arugula with a dressing on it. For a high end seafood place, that is the laziest side I have ever seen. Most seafood restaurants offer and roasted veggie like asparagus. I didn’t even attempt to eat the arugula. My significant other and I had the lure old fashioned which tasted like rubbing alcohol. I should’ve known better because the only places that can do an old fashioned correctly, are Wisconsin supper clubs. My SO ordered the beef tips for dinner, which did not look like it should’ve been charged what it was. It looked like beef, plain gravy and the unseasoned mashed potatoes again. My other daughter ordered buttered noodles from the kids menu, which is just that nothing special. For $240, I expected melt in your mouth food and was so underwhelmed it was disappointing. This is a restaurant in such a beautiful area and they have mediocre food at best. The positives were the service. The waiter was very attentive and the food came out quickly. I don’t understand all the high reviews stating the food is good. Maybe I ordered the wrong dishes, but if I’m ever in the area again I won’t be...

Visiting from out of state and chose Lure to celebrate my birthday when I saw they served halibut. Our waitress, Ewona, unsure of spelling as she had no name tag, was our server. She was kind enough to give me a taster of the carafe of white wine for $18.00. When the wine arrived it was not a full carafe and she took it upon herself to finish pouring out the rest of the wine between my husband and I and she just dumped the rest of it in my husbands glass. Fine dining does not just dump the rest of wine into a glass, if you cannot evenly distribute the wine, leave it to the customer to distribute. My husband informed Ewona it was my birthday and if there were any suggestions on what to order and she named a few we were considering, but no comment about it being my birthday, she was all business. When our dishes finally arrived, we had undressed potatoes, no butter brought, sour cream or anything just steamed whole red potatoes with under steamed broccoli, it literally crunched when you ate It. I got the crab encrusted Halibut, which should have been named crab topped and my husband ordered the walleye. My dish was $40 and my husbands dish was $27, and both got the same 2 lousy sides. After finishing our meals she asked if we wanted to order a dessert, we replied no and she brought our check. No mention of a free birthday dessert or anything. My husband witnessed our server giving another patron a free birthday dessert, but never bothered to offer a free birthday dessert to me. When leaving a tip we decided to leave a tip just a bit above 10%, which is nothing like we would typically leave. Both of our fish dishes were cooked beautifully, but the sides were underdeveloped and could use a little finesse and better...

7/23/2025. 4 to 5 star experience we stopped for happy hour. We tried the five dollar old-fashioned which was OK. The drinks on the regular menu for $15 were very good. We had some of the happy hour food specials. I’m not sure that it was really a special price because everything was half portion, but it was OK. Everything was plated really nicely. We had the crab nachos which the crab was good with mango salsa and the queso really sold it. I think they would’ve been better on regular nachos instead of the wonton nachos because they were pretty greasy. It was a good helping for $10. We also had the sushi which was four little bites for eight dollars which the kids liked. It looked like there was bar seating right off the bar which the bartender had our 12-year-old sit on the lap of my husband to sit at the bar but should’ve suggested sitting at a possible bar table- it looked like they were also getting happy hour deals at the tables so that’s one reason I gave four stars because we stayed crammed at the bar instead of the table option which would’ve been a lot nicer experience. The tables were open initially when we got there so that would’ve worked out, but then of course they filled up. Also our bartender wasn’t very attentive, but he was pleasant enough. They also had a woman running out food and she was very nice. The atmosphere was very clean and nice and they had other early bird menu pricing which looked pretty good. In the end, they had a budget that was friendly for a wide variety of people that seating at the bar or on the patio or inside and booth, which I like. And the...