Anchor Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Town of Fulton

Let me preface by saying, I don’t give many 1-star reviews. But the Anchor Inn definitely earned it

Brief summary: horrible service, mediocre food, and one nasty owner. Honestly one of the worst restaurant experiences I've had in recent years. I would not recommend that anyone go here. Actually quite surprised that there are as many good reviews as there are. You want the full story, see below:

We stopped at the Anchor Inn on our way home from a family reunion in Lake Geneva. Never been there, never heard of it, but they had food and we were hungry. We got there at 11:50am and were promptly seated in a nice outdoor area. No complaints…yet. Placed an order for some appetizers at 12:00pm and they arrived at 12:10pm, which is when we placed our food order (a wrap, taco salad, grilled cheese sandwich, and a hot dog). Pretty simple order. At 12:30pm, we started wondering what was taking so long. At 12:45pm, still no food. Asked the waitress what was taking so long, and pointed out that multiple families who were seated long after us had already gotten their food. She looked annoyed at our inquiry and said she would check. 12:50pm and still no food, we asked for a manager and said we do not want our entrees anymore and do not plan on paying for them. No manager came. At 1:00pm our food finally came. As did a very angry owner.

The owner barked at us, “what’s the problem here?” I said that we ordered our food almost an hour ago and watched as everyone else who was seated after us got their food before us. Before I could even finish, she said “LET ME TELL YOU HOW THIS WORKS. THEY ordered burgers. We pre-cook our burgers in the morning, which is why they got their food before you. Since the burgers are pre-cooked, they don’t take as long.” To which I said, “so the other six families that were seated after us but got their food before us ALL ordered burgers? Every one of them?” (Also, you pre-cook your burgers in the morning??? Gross.) She did not like my sarcasm.

She proceeded to pull out order receipts and tell us that we did not place our order until 12:30pm. I told her that is absolutely not true, that we placed our food order at 12:10pm and that the waitress likely forgot to put our order in. She vehemently denied wrong-doing on her employees part and then told us to take our food and leave, which we gladly did.

The owner was one of the rudest people I have dealt with in a long time. Any manager with any sort of customer service skills would have apologized for the delay/inconvenience and tried to alleviate the situation. For some reason, the owner of this restaurant seemed to care very little about her customer's satisfaction.

Definitely never...

So earlier in the year I had rave reviews about this place. The food, the service, the atmosphere, the bands were all top notch and it quickly became the top of our list for places to go on a Friday night. Recently, that has all changed. Yes I understand that it's winter time and things are different when you're packed inside however my most recent experience (last Friday) was one of the worst to date. We were seated immediately, great, no problems there. The girl said "I'm not your server but I'm going to grab you some drinks quick". So as we sat there with drinks and menus for 25minutes, we were ignored by every single server that walked by. We were a table of two, we knew what we wanted as soon as we sat down because we are (used to be) regulars, as a former server myself we would have been a table that was easy to please. We then over heard a blonde male server yell to his table next to us "yeah my boss just asked me if I could take that two top right there and I'm like no are you kidding me?!". Pretty sure everyone around heard him and this made my boyfriend and I feel insulted, ignored and embarrassed as we were the only "two top" that didn't have a server yet. Very very unprofessional of that staff member but with how little help they had that night I'm sure they are desperate to keep anyone on regardless of their professionalism. We promptly moved ourselves to the bar seats where we were ignored for another 5-8 minutes before I yelled out to the bartender "please serve us! We are being ignored by everyone!". She was very kind and very helpful once she actually took our order. The food came another half hour+ later but to be honest it was the best cod and salad I had ever had there. The frickles batter was changed and not for the better. Bottom line, prepare your staff for a busy Friday night, hire more help and maybe train your staff on manners and etiquette of talking about your boss/other tables in front of your customers. Very very off putting. If we do return this winter it'll be a carry out order, hopefully all the kinks will be worked out by next summer when we frequent there each Friday night for the outdoor band. P.s. the new location inside for bands is awful, you can't hear them sing or talk or ask the audience questions. The music itself you can hear however their voice gets lost in the rafters. Put them back on the floor so people can sit close and hear them and get a...

Went out yesterday (09/03/17) for a wonderful boat ride with some good friends. Since we were from out of the area and they were from the area they suggested we stop at the anchor inn on this Labor day weekend. With it being around lunch time approximately 1:00pm I figured they would be packed and we wouldn't have anywhere to dock the pontoon. Well imagine my surprise when there were several spots open. This should have been a warning sign.

We docked and quickly found a table for 6 on the deck. We thought nothing of it since there were a couple of other open tables. Boy were we wrong. The waitress came out and said they had a waiting list. Ok...? I thought, then why are there open tables? But not wanting to make a spectacle I said nothing. We were told with a point of her finger that this area over here is open seating, then were directed to the grassy area where they had tables set up.

I jumped up and took a drink order to the outside bar where I found limited selection. No problem I didn't mind going inside. But I did love the sign that showed everyone that drinks increase by .50 cents when the band is playing... the second warning sign I should have paid attention to.

Anyway I stopped back at our table to let everyone know that I was going inside to get drinks and was informed not to bother we were leaving. Ok.... what's up. Our friends told me that a waitress stopped by and told them that there was no service where we were directed to move to. WHAT.... REALLY? On a holiday weekend? I looked around and seen others eating at their tables in this area and wondered how they got service or their food. Well that was enough for us and the last sign. Every area of you business should be making you money. Apparently these owners have enough money, good for them.

We went down to Lakeside waited on the water till a spot opened up to dock the pontoon, docked, found a table, we're greeted pretty quickly and ordered food and drinks and were back on the water in an hour or less. 6 people a $100 Bill in an hour or less.

Needless to say we won't be frequenting the anchor inn on any of our subsequent trips. Aptly...