Quaker Steak & Lube — Restaurant in Summit Township

READ THIS FIRST: I’m super critical and have high standards when it comes to pretty much everything, except 😶 Anyhow, …..

BACKSTORY: Drove straight for 11+ hours through madness from St. Louis to Erie, NY 😵‍💫 — delays from accidents and speed traps the entire journey. Headed to Upstate NY! Needed a break. It’s 9:35 PM and hadn’t eaten all day (except a banana and some candy) to keep my metabolism alert and fast. I was shaking. Needed “real” nourishment and a few cocktails 😬to calm the energy. I’m electric at this point.

Pull of the exit into town and there isn’t hardly anything promising open — what to do?? 🤔 And, then I see a green (I think) neon sign that displays, OPEN. Yes!!!!! I do a quick u-turn to get to my locale - I jump out of the Wrangler and see that they are open to 11 PM!! Awesome 🤩

Go inside and there are only two people at the bar. The bartender is mopping the bar area floor. She looks over at me and stares. I ask, “are you open?” She likes, “ yeah”. I’m hesitate and ask again, “are you sure?”. She nods and waves me over. I sit down at the bar. She tells me they are open to 11 PM. The place is huge, but it’s totally chill and cool. The vibe felt right. She asks, “what would like to drink?” I ordered an “old fashioned” but like Woodford Reserve and they didn’t have any, so I went with a Jack and Ginger 😋 — my go to if I can’t get an old fashioned. Then, I had mauled over the menu. After about 7 minutes and one cocktail finished, I finally decided on the Boom Boom Shrimp, Cheese Burger (medium-well) and substituted a side salad w/ balsamic vinaigrette in-lieu of the fries.

FOOD EVALUATION:

Salad 🥗- super fresh greens (nothing frozen. Nice presentation. Very large salad for a side salad — actually ate the whole thing. Dressing was good. No complaints. Order the salad!!!!

Boom Boom 💥 Shrimp 🍤 — 6 or 8 tasty shrimp with a crunch, light breaded and really tasty glaze. Could’ve been more boom boom spicy but that’s my preference. I would order it again, but might try other things before doing so — they have lots of yummy 🤤 options.

Cheese Burger — took it to go!! After the large table salad, boom boom shrimp and four (4) cocktails I was filled for the moment. However, I ended up eating the burger after I checked into my room. Wow!!! It was so delicious!! The bartender even packed me napkins, plastic ware and condiments including a few pieces of licorice 😮- that was really thoughtful and kind. So, definitely try their burgers — it will hit the spot after traveling all day, and if you like burgers. It was charbroiled to medium-well perfection

SERVICE:

Outstanding! Victoria 😍🥰, the bartender, was a breath of fresh-air and super easy on the eyes 😊 She was an amazing conversationalist, thoughtful (she knew I was traveling and made sure I had everything I needed like napkins, condiments and plastic ware). Victoria is a true professional and top-notch at what she does, which is mainly a people game and she excels — props to management (make sure you treat her well to retain you talent, which is the backbone of any organization)!!!

OTHER COMMENTS:

Didn’t use the bathrooms, so can’t comment. However, the place seemed clean, but I also judge on the cleanliness of restaurant bathrooms, but didn’t need to use it — so, I...

The two stars are for the multiple hostesses. We were promptly greeted and shown to our lane for bowling that we reserved earlier in the day while staying at Splash Lagoon. The hostess showed us our table and it was a low table with 4 chairs, we are a family of 5 with an 18 month old and need a highchair. It was dinner hour on a Friday during a bit of a rush. Our waitress took our drink order and came back pretty quickly with them, placing them on a 3 chair hightop table while using the original table to place dirty trays and dishes on. She asked if we would be ordering food to which we replied "yes we will start with appetizers". We bowled for about 30 and the waitress came back, and seemed to be rushed, to ask if we were planning on ordering any meals as the kitchen was backed up and it would be best to get the order in. Still no appetizers but decided to order. The waitress rushed through my eldest son's order, my next son's order and my husband's, then proceeded to grab the menus from everyone and say "okay, that's it" I quickly ordered something for my youngest son. And she disappeared. About 5 minutes later the appetizers show up and a hostess comes to inform us that another patron has hit our car in the parking lot. The hostess call the local authorities for us and my husband went outside to wait. During this time it was of course the talk of the restaurant. Our waitress in passing quickly asked if it was our car as I'm now alone with my 3 boys. Time ran out on our lane as I'm going between the parking lot and the restaurant checking on my husband and my children. The hostess was able to extend the time on the lane to keep my children occupied. Within 15 minutes of that the entrees arrive, I'm assuming from the kitchen staff as I cleared the table for the entrees The waitress didn't bother to ask if husband's dinner should be held until he was finished with the officer outside, husband's dinner sat for another 15-20 minutes until his stuff was complete. He ate a cold $31 steak. I approached the waitress and told her that we needed our check. She then at this point tries to take time out of her busy schedule to chat about the car accident and if we need anything. I repeated that we needed the check and that we were ready to leave. She then tried to engage conversation with husband and I asked him to give her his card so we could pay and leave. We spent a total of two hours at this establishment and felt as if we were a burden to our waitress. I won't call her out by name but she knows who she is and my only advice is this, even if you feel rushed your customer's shouldn't feel rushed. Your tip could've been at least double what it was if you didn't rush to get...

I've been to this location a handful of times when visiting Splash Lagoon because of the convenience, but I learned my lesson to just drive to another restaurant in the future.

To start off we knew it was going to be busy due to memorial day weekend so we put our name on a waiting list, and we were told it can take about an hour so they will text when our tables available. We walked to our hotel for about 45 mins and then walked back over to find out that they had already seated us. They never texted, and someone else took our reservation.

When we finally got seated, our waitress took our drink order, and then we waited about 20 mins for her to take our food order. Which was pretty insane. Finally, our orders in, we are a group of 7 with pretty simple meals, not a lot of fryer food so it really shouldn't have taken very long. We get our apps, and then we wait. Waitress starts bringing out our food after 40 mins. She has the younger kids' meals, one mac and cheese (extremely dry like it was sitting under the heat lamp forever) with fries the other with tenders and fries. Then we got a steak and fries for a teenage boy at my table but didn't get his cinnamon apples. My oldest got a full rack of ribs and fries. The ribs were cold, and so were the fries, so I sent it back. My friend her, her husband, both order burgers and fries. Waitress brings out the fries and said burgers would be right up. Then we wait again..... for another 30 plus mins. My oldest is waiting for new ribs. My friend and her husband are still waiting for their burgers, and my sons friend is still waiting for the cinnamon apples. The wait time was absolutely insane.

Then, when everyone finally gets their meals, my friends burger is burnt, extremely hard, and not even edible. So she ended up sending it back and not eating.

Management comped us half off my sons ribs and gave my friend half one burger meal and removed her burger meal. We wanted the balance split between us, but instead, Waitress wasn't paying attention and charged the full amount on my friends card without even running the gift card she tried to use. It was such a joke experience. I've been a waitress before she shouldn't have had any issues, and then she would vanish for crazy long periods of time.

The only good thing about this place was the drink in...