Poppycocks — Restaurant in Traverse City

Nice little restaurant in a good location. Many parking options nearby. We went during the week so it was not busy at all. Waiting time was good. Server (Maisy) was nice and helpful. Drinks: My wife tried the Manhattan, it was nice and not shy on the alcohol. Daughter tried the Soda-tini, it was kind of a watered down fizzy-shake, it was OK to get the underage ones to keep entertained. I've got soda water, wasn't charged for it, which was surprising nowadays. Despite it's carbonated tap water, many places are charging full price of the regular soda. Main Course: Whitefish Cakes were tasting like of undercooked dough. Side soup was not looking well but tasted good. Key Lime Shrimp had an interesting taste. Expectation was the shrimp will have the lime flavor, which was bland. Pasta sauce was too sour for my taste, overpowering tanginess at best. Boxed it for later but unfortunately went to trash in the evening. Ordered another burger to cover our appetite. Ordered 2 burgers, very good flavor, on the expensive side given the cheese is extra $2. I had side salad instead of fries with ranch dressing which turned out good. $5 substitute for salad is a little high but its taste kind of justified it. Dessert: Crème Brulee was nothing extraordinary but I'd recommend putting some fresh berries on top. Key Lime Pie was just OK. General: Double espresso is $6, single is $5.5? Google shows as $$ place but it should tag as $$$. Three of us spent over $150 for lunch without tax and gratuity. Most interesting part was 4% charge for credit card. It's been a while since I saw something like this other than gas stations charging extra for minimum purchases. Yes, it's an upscale restaurant but some of the prices are not fair. Are we going to try it again in the future, maybe. Sorry, no photos taken. Food presentation was good but...

We've been here quite a few times but after this experience I don't think we'll be coming back. We ordered a salad to share as well as 3 entrees for the 3 of us. We also were offered bread which we said yes to. Our entrees came before the salad or the bread. I had my pasta before the salad because I knew it would be cold if I had salad first like I was planning, but my mom made the mistake of starting with the salad so her food was cold by the time she ate it.

I will cut them some slack, they were very obviously severely understaffed. Our waitress was the one making our pasta and one of the waitresses was telling another waitress that they didn't have a host so they would all have to cover for each other.

The salad was actually really good. By far the best thing we ordered. I got the key lime shrimp pasta, which I can only describe as strange. The shrimp was good but the pasta sauce was just... strange. My mom and sister both got the butternut ravioli which was actually pretty good. They also substituted the riesling poached pear (we don't do alcohol) out for sliced fresh pear which was nice of them.

When we got the bill, we had been charged for the large salad instead of the small salad like we'd asked for. When we brought it up to the waitress, she said we were wrong. I pulled up the menu online to double check once she walked away and we were right, it was supposed to be $17 not $20. Luckily she corrected herself and admitted that we were right when she came back.

Overall, definitely way too overpriced based on the quality of food and the service. Begging the owners to get more staff because it's clear the servers are all...

We went on a weekday with no reservation and we got squeezed in but would otherwise had to wait 30 min. So I definitely recommend getting a reservation any day of the week! The service was really slow, and like I said, it was a weekday, so I imagine that's often the case. My drink was fantastic and so was my partner's. I also had a salad with the lemon cherry vinaigrette and that was amazing! I don't normally love vinaigrette dressing, I usually like it ok, but this one was very good! My entree, however, was disappointing two fold. So when I ordered, I asked if I could get the pesto pasta without the parmesan. The waitress said yes, so I ordered it. Then when my food was finally served, the waitress brought it to me and said the parmesan is in the pesto and they had scooped it in top but it's ok, I can just scrape it off. I didn't want to have to deal with sending it back considering how slow it was already so I did just scrape it off as best I could (good thing it wasn't for food allergies) and the dish was not good. Not good at all. And I had my partner taste it with the parmesan and it was not because of the lack of parmesan. It was bland except for the dried cherry tomatoes which there was too much of and just kind of ruined the whole dish. The atmosphere of the restaurant felt a little chaotic, it's a small space and it was busy. We had a window seat but there were no shades and the sun was blinding. So, in conclusion, some food was great, some was terrible, service was not great, the drinks were very good, atmosphere subpar. Not my favorite and I was definitely disappointed. Not worth the $$$...