New Park Gastropub — Restaurant in South Haven

Edited: I am very torn about this review, but I can’t in good conscience give a 5-star review to a restaurant where we were served 2 inedible items out of the 6 adult dishes ordered. I assumed that the issues were because the restaurant is new and still finding it’s groove, but when I saw the prior 5-star reviews I wondered if we had a different kitchen staff all together. Perhaps our experience was an anomaly…

First the good: (1) our server was attentive, friendly, and hardworking; (2) plenty of outdoor tables with large umbrellas to protect our party of 8 from the sun; (3) crayons and sidewalk chalk for the kids; (4) the server took 10% off the bill after we advised her of the food issues (we did not ask for a discount); (5) the salsa/chips, hot honey chicken sandwich, and pork chops were all very good.

The not so good:

(1) my father ordered pork chops with roasted fingerling potatoes (which of course are smaller and take less time to cook than, say, a large baked potato). Most of the potatoes were so raw that they were inedible. I didn’t believe him initially so I took a bite of one and it was downright raw except for the outer skin. We alerted the server and she offered to have the kitchen remake the potatoes but my father told her it was not necessary.

(2) I ordered the salmon with cilantro lime rice which sounded delicious. The rice tasted like someone had accidentally spilled a cup of lime juice concentrate in the pot. It was the strongest lime flavor I’ve ever tasted, and it had that artificial lime flavor like it came from a bottle rather than fresh limes. I tried a few forkfuls because I thought maybe it wasn’t the whole serving of rice but the heavy lime concentrate taste was prevalent throughout. I asked the server to please ask the chef to taste it because I thought someone should see what it actually tasted like. I wanted to love it, but the rice was inedible. The salmon was overcooked but edible.

(3) the fries served with the sandwiches and kid’s dinners were very bland and tasteless. Even the kids didn’t eat them.

(4) we were the second party to be seated on the outdoor patio - we arrived at 5:05 pm - but didn’t get our food until 6:00 pm or after. One of our party who ordered the barbacoa quesadilla didn’t get his food until 10+ minutes after the rest of us. So when some of the dishes turned out to be inedible, we reasonably didn’t wish to wait for them to be remade. We had already been waiting almost an hour from the time of ordering.

I hope the kitchen is able to resolve these issues, or that it was just an “off” night, because the space/setting is great, and the menu is interesting. Despite the above experience, I would give the restaurant another try someday when I’m back in town. However, I’m going to give them some time to iron out the wrinkles in...

Stopped in this past weekend while in town with friends. From the outside, we thought it looked pretty neat that the owner was able to take an old service station and turn it into a restaurant so we thought we would give it a try. When we walked over to the gate where the hostess works, she asked how many we had with us. We told her it was six adults and one baby but that we only needed a table for the six adults. Her response was "Well what is it, six or seven?" in a tone that was very unwelcoming. We told her it would be a table for six and so she sat us. Our experience with our waitress wasn't much better. We started at one end of the table with people ordering drinks and when she got to my wife, my wife started to tell her the food that she would like and the waitress snapped back with "We are doing drinks now!". So much so that, while I was talking to the person I was sitting next to, I picked up on it through our conversation and turned to see what was going on. We finished our drink order and then later place our food order. I was surprised at how quickly the food came out and thought maybe we had turned a corner. Four of us ordered different dishes while two people had ordered the same thing (fish tacos). My wife ordered the Harvest Bowl and when it came, she asked the waitress if she could have another little cup of dressing for it. It became evident that the majority of the people at our table thought the food was pretty bland and could stand to have some more seasoning on it. After a bit, I asked my wife why she wasn't eating and she said how she was still waiting for the cup of dressing so I told her I would go in and find the waitress and remind her. All told, it took 15 minutes to get the dressing. When she came out with the dressing, she came in so hot that, as she set the dressing on the table, it sloshed up and out of the cup, through the slots in the table and landed on my wife's outfit. She asked my wife if she would like more napkins and my wife said yes and began using the napkin she had to try and blot up the oily dressing. As we waited for the napkins, I saw our waitress take two tables drink orders, bring each of those tables their drinks, take food to another table, and go back to one of the prior tables to get them another round of drinks, take a food order at an additional table and bring that table their drinks as well. At this point, my wife went to the bathroom to try and wash her clothes, assuming the napkins were never going to arrive. 10 minutes after the spill, they came out and without an apology.

I am hoping that all of this is due to a restaurant being newer and people needing some additional training. The unfortunate situation is that there are 6 of us who won't be trying it again in the...

UPDATE: Owner response is nothing but the same attitude we got from the employee that worked for them. Wonder where they get it from. Not owning responsibility or apologizing at all, wanted to focus on my problems and how it took me over a year to do the review, so what, doesn't change what we went through, and you don't forget an experience like that. I do a lot of HONEST reviews and sometimes will miss one, especially unpleasant ones I don't care to remember. Speaks of policy, well might want to make sure everyone is on the same page! Because we DID call and someone DID say no problem they'll have something for us and to head on in. It doesn't even matter, there was plenty of room for our party of eight or 9 and the person sitting in the host area did not want to do a thing to seat us or accommodate us in any way. Told us 2 hours so we would just go away. When the rest of us got there someone else took care of us immediately, NO PROBLEM. Review changing to one star based on onwer response END UPDATE: So basically the person working in the first photo there, completely rude and incompetent. Nothing like being greeted with attitude and incompetency. Kept telling us they don't do reservations and we couldn't be seated for at least 2 hours. At least 2 hours she said. They had plenty of room and were not full at all when we showed up, or when we finally got in! We said we were meeting others here and they called ahead. She wanted nothing to do with it. We ended up getting in just fine, with our party. Just had to talk to someone else with there wits about them, that wanted to do more than to sit with there lazy self breathing heavy staring at their phone doing nothing being all but completely useless. You can see it in the photo, took that beaut while figuring out what to do while we waited, NOT spending money in their establishment...