Black North Inn — Restaurant in Town of Carlton

I had a reservation and our table was setup with a view when we arrived. The hostess greeted us very pleasantly. We had a great start!

We ordered two cups of soup, pretzel, Beef on Weck and a steak dish.

The kitchen was backed up so we waited a little for our food. The wait wasn’t that bad since we were snacking on the pretzel 🥨.

I don’t usually give reviews under 4 stars. What happens next warrants the 3 stars.

We ordered the steak rare or medium rare, depending on how rare they could make it.

The steak came out with no pink at all. It was tough to cut.

It took me awhile to flag someone down. When our server came, I mentioned that we requested the steak rare but it looks more well done.

Her answer surprised me that I didn’t know how to respond.

I can give you A1 sauce, she said.

I don’t expect the steak to be a 5-star rating steak. However, when the steak wasn’t cooked as requested and we were offered A1 sauce to make it more tolerable. That just doesn’t seem right.

She said she will check with the Kitchen to see what they could do. 2 minutes laters, she stopped by and said: I am just gonna make sure that I didn’t make the mistake before I go to the kitchen. Hmmm, ok.

She came back with two choices, 10% off or they will cook another steak for us.

We don’t want to chance it especially, when they kept on apologizing to the customers saying their kitchen is backed up.

Besides, we had already lost our appetite because my father-in-law’s beef on weck sandwich is also dry(see pictures).

We didn’t eat lunch so we arrived hungry but he could only manage to eat half of his sandwich, thanks to the Scotch Ale😝.

I then asked to speak with the manager. I was told the manager is in the kitchen that probably won’t come out.

This was the first time that a manager wouldn’t come out.

Side note: I often asked to speak with the manager when the server did a great job and so want to recognize the server. I don’t usually ask the manager for complaints.

I told her 10% for this magnitude of error was nothing.

She said she would check with manager.

The manager still didn’t come out. The kitchen must be really short staffed because now the manager offered to comp everything.

We told the server that we are not trying not to pay the bill but want solutions for the two dry, overcooked meals. Especially, we had two glasses of beer, two soft drinks, two cups of soup and a pub pretzel.

We countered that they waived the two overcooked dishes( not much was eaten).

The server went back to check with the manager. She came back and said the manager accepted the offer and she would bring the bill right out.

Twenty minutes later, we had to flag her down for our bill.

My oh my, I felt so bad for my father-in-law because his Father’s Day meal wasn’t that great. He picked the restaurant because he was looking forward to the sandwich.

I hope this is just a one off situation.

Long review because I’m shocked with my encounter especially the A1 sauce solution offered for an overcooked steak. ...

No/poor management. don't waste your time or money. We went there tonight and awful is an understatement. we had to wait a good 45 minutes to get seated. we had 8 of us... and were put at TWO separate booths! ok...not impressed, but we didn't get a reservation, so, fine. it took at least 15 minutes to have our drink order taken. at least another 15 minutes before the waitress returned to take our dinner order. the table beside us came in at least 15 minutes after us and had drinks before we even got to order ours. they received numerous appetizers before we could get our soup and fries! at about NINETY minutes after being seated, I asked the waitress to see the manager. she seriously asked "why"? 🤨. I informed her. the manager never bothered to come to our tables. offered to remove some food items, but by this time it was 2115 and our kids hadn't been able to eat. They need to hire a new manager and staff. the Waitress stated the kitchen was Short-handed. fine...I get it, but a good manager would not have seated people that they didn't have the capacity to serve. had they mentioned at 7pm when we arrived that not only would it be a wait for the table, which they didn't get us together, but that the wait for food was going to be long, we would've appreciated the honesty and came back another time. or as a good manager, they would've explained the kitchen was Short-handed and they were not seating at full,-capacity, we would've understood, but to subject customers to such pathetic service is not effective management. while we are not the regular crew, our family lives down the road and has frequented a place often. Maybe because they don't get loud and drunk, they're not as memorable as some other people, but they do eat their frequently and bring multiple family members there. at least they did. I doubt they'll want to waste their money...

Black North Inn was recommended by friends, so we check the reviews on Google. Reviews were mostly positive so we decided to take the 40 minute drive from Rochester to have dinner there one evening. The restaurant was roughly three-quarters full when we arrived just after 6 o'clock. We had 10 minute wait for a table and then we were seated in their party room with a view overlooking the water that's designed for special events and also serves to handle restaurant overflow. We had a 10-minute wait for a server to come to our table who took our beverage orders and gave us menus. Our server came back 10 minutes later, took our food orders, and then disappeared. I ordered the fish fry and my partner ordered the grilled chicken salad. And then we waited, and waited, and waited. After 35 minutes had passed, I flagged down our server to ask her how much longer it would be for our food. She said she'd check and disappeared again. She returned a few minutes later with our food, and apologized, saying that our food just became available. The grilled chicken salad was good and was a large portion of food. My fish fry wasn't even hot, so I suspect that our food had been sitting in the kitchen for some time. To add to that, my fish fry was soggy and excessively oily. The potatoes that came with the fish fry were good. One thing that was very distracting during dinner was the amount of noise in the party room. There were only about 2 dozen people seated in the party room but it sounded like there were twice that many. Parking for the restaurant is very limited and most diners use the adjacent parking lot intended for the boat launch. Our total bill for food and beverages came to roughly $25. I know there were a large number of positive reviews on Google. Based on our personal experience, we can't recommend it, especially considering the 40-minute drive...