The Gathering Place — Restaurant in Troy

Don't eat here.

My experience at The Gathering Place was so bad that although I ate there two weeks ago, I'm taking the time now to write my negative review.

A little context: I've lived in Troy, Michigan my whole life, so naturally I know what The Gathering Place is. I had no impression of it, nevering having gone myself, until a few years ago a friend who worked there told me that they had left a sink covered in mold for months without cleaning it. All employees were to use the other sink, and it was only cleaned when the health inspector was due. At least that's what I'm told.

The beginning of our restaurant experience wasn't bad. We were seated quickly, and the restaurant was much more spacious that I would have thought. Our table, however, was fairly dirty. A busboy came later to wipe the table down, but only wiped down 75% of the table, neglecting the part of the table on the inside of the booth. Not terrible, but not a good start.

We ordered a Large Pizza with a few toppings, a small pizza, the jalapeno bites and pretzels.

The pretzels and jalapeno bites came first. The jalapeno bites were fine, but the pretzels were extremely overpriced. 4 pretzel sticks surrounding a massive tub of cheese, it was an underwhelming appetizer. I don't recall the price exactly, but it was certainly not worth it.

When our pizza came out, the large was severely burnt on the bottom, making all corner pieces difficult if not unappetizing to eat. The small pizza itself was missing. After waiting ten minutes, our waitress told us that they had dropped the small pizza on the floor, and it had to be remade.

While we were waiting for the small pizza to arrive, we ate the large. It was okay. okay sprinkling the pizza with hot pepper flakes, the entire top fell off. Whoever had filled up the hot pepper flakers last neglected to screw the cap on, resulting in half the container of pepper flakes pouring all over the pizza. It ruined a good two pieces of the large, a pizza that we still finished before the other one came out.

One of us ordered a club sandwich to bring home, and was notified that there was no bacon. Except they had only notified him after already adding the club sandwich to the bill. They put him in an awkward situation where he would have had to force the waitress to take the sandwich off the bill after it was already being made and we had paid. Luckily they had bacon, so the crisis was averted. The sandwich however was terrible, and the person he took it back for called to complain.

After all of this, not only were we not comped any part of the meal, we were actually told that the menu that we used, the one they had given us, was out of date. The pizzas were actually several dollars more expensive than listed due to the owners changing. When asked when the owners had changed, they told us it had been over half a year. There wasn't a hint of compromise in the waitress's voice, so we paid the bill and moved on.

Overall probably one of the grimiest restaurant experience I've ever had. I'd chalk it up to management, but between the waitress, chef, owners, and busboy, it was a mess all around....

The $5.99 pepper cheese bites had good flavor, but not worth $6 for a dozen dice sized bits. Our waitress was unimpressive. I know life happens, but if you're going to be a server, your attitude can't suck life from the patrons. Service was slow, it wasn't busy, steady enough, but for a burger, beer and cheese tots, we were there unattended for 30 minutes before we actually got our drinks. Menus have items blacked out, why not spend the time and money and reprint? The paper menus had food and sauces and who knows what else stuck to it. Gross, they need to be thrown out. Burger was great, I got onion rings, they were ok. The ranch is good. My water cup had a chip in it, the table wasn't washed before we sat down. There decor was cool. Old beer cans from my grandparents day and photos from back in the day. I got a sense that serious cleaning hasn't been done in a while. The photo in my booths area has splatters of pop or sauce, not sure, an offer it. And it's the original owners photo... Also, really dusty, too. Food gets a fair rating, but I wonder if they were to list the inspectors grades on the establishment, I imagine cleaning would be high on the list of fails. I probably...

I probably hadn't been here in 35 - 40 years. How the place has changed! Had group of 12 here for a birthday lunch. Food was terrible. I had a small square pizza. Ate a couple slices, cause I was hungry, took the other 2 home. I threw them away as I walked in the house. And I'm a pizza lover, I've probably never thrown pizza. BIL ate 3 or 4 bites of his Caesar salad and coulnd't eat anymore. MIL said the fish and chips were terrible. How do you mess up fish and chips? The only dish I saw that people finished was the French onion soup.

The only thing that saved this from being a 1 star review was our server. She was the only server there, with a half-full bar, a group of 6-8 watching football, a 4 top and our table of 12. She...