The Lucky Rooster Pub & Eatery — Restaurant in St. Jacob

“The Un-Lucky Rooster”

On 8/11/21, I traveled into St. Jacob to get my oil changed at St. Jacob Automotive. I live in the local area but really only travel into SJ when I need to take care of my automotive needs or want tasty ice cream. Ironically enough, both of these fine businesses (St. Jacob Automotive and Frosty Pony) are located across the street from the Lucky Rooster.

On this date, I planned to have lunch (+1) while my vehicle was getting an oil change. I arrived in the Lucky Rooster at appx 12:10pm. At that time, there was a party of 4 in front of me and overall took about 5 minutes just to be seated. I noticed the eatery was pretty busy and there appeared to be only (1) actual waitress attending to all patrons.

Lunch Orders were placed and the wait began. 30 mins goes by and the waitress tell us that the food orders are backed up but will be out as soon as possible. I can understand that these things happen so we waited patiently. 60 mins goes by and the waitress tells us the same and that they will get the food out as soon as possible. Finally, 70 minutes from when I walked into the eatery, ordering only (2) lunch sandwiches, we had enough of the waiting and started to exit the eatery. The waitress informed us that there were only (1) waitress, (1) cook, and (1) dish washer working the shift and they are extremely backed up and offered to give us a gift card for a future visit.

Obviously, after waiting 70mins+, we were more than ready to leave and declined the gift card. Of course just as we get to the door we hear “your food is now ready.” We declined the food and made our way out of the eatery.

Overall, I was very disappointed with this experience and never got the chance to eat one bite of food. I rate this experience “one star” because this issue could have been very easily resolved by the waitress clearly communicating that any patrons dining would experience an estimated one hour + wait before eating. If there’s going to be a wait, you must let your patrons know how long it will be. This is expectation management 101. In any business, especially restaurant business, it’s important to under-promise and over deliver. This gives you the opportunity to delight the customers you are serving. (See both St. Jacob Automotive and The Frosty Pony as they clearly have this mastered). The opposite is problematic, which is over promising and under delivering and not managing expectations for your patrons.

Next time around I will pack a lunch and not take the risk of being an...

My lovely wife and I stopped in here for lunch on Friday. What a disappointment! My wife ordered a Patty Melt (medium well)and "homemade" chips. I ordered their cheeseburger (well done) and fries. Also a cup of chili. I had the chili prior to our meal. The chili was terrible!! It tastes like watered down cheap tomato juice! Our lunch came out. Instead of medium well on the Patty Melt and well done on the burger. The Patty Melt was medium rare and my burger was rare!! Both the homemade chips and fries had so much salt on them we couldn't eat them. The fries were soggy. I sent mine back to be cooked a second time. The fries came out before my burger. Again the fries had so much salt on them I couldn't eat them. The second burger came out. It was cooked well done. Yet again so much salt I couldn't eat it!! Our server apologized three or four times. She did adjust our bill for the LOUSY food I couldn't eat!! DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR YOUR MONEY ON...

My son had a baseball game in St. Jacob so we decided to stop in for the first time for dinner. We're not from St. Jacob so we stopped in completely on a whim and with low expectations.

We were pleasantly surprised! The menu had a lot of great options. My youngest was excited they had spaghetti on the kids menu in addition to the general standby options of chicken strips, hamburgers, etc.

Food came out hot and perfect and we all really liked what we ordered. My ham steak was great (an unexpected choice) and the mac and cheese was very good. While the food was great, the service was fantastic and will make us probably make the drive to St. Jacob to eat there again.

A man came around and chatted up our kids, asked how we were doing and even refilled some drinks. I would assume he was the owner. It was nice to see someone up and about, interacting with customers and helping out...