McDuff's Bar and Grille — Restaurant in Wayland

UPDATE 2/27/22 I've increased the rating to 4 stars (from 3). The menu is new, there is a separate small menu with seasonal specialties, there is a seasonal menu with cocktail specialties, the menu has several non-standard items that are interesting, the onion rings are fantastic and are homemade- not frozen, the service was excellent (the place was almost empty, which means that the word is not getting out there about the quality of the food/service). On the down side: Booth seats have torn/ripped fabric, making the place seem a bid shoddy. No clear listing of on-tap beers or ciders, other than a rather confusing chalk board. Should have a list at each table.

This place is quite superior to the Wayland Hotel (catty-cornered to McDuff's) since a lot more pride of ownership is demonstrated.

I would give McDuff's 4 stars if it wasn't for three important things that are easily fixable:

1. Menu: the menu apparently will be updated soon. But, the current menu has old prices. That's a big "NO-NO". The correct prices should be written on the menu, or the waitstaff should inform the customers that the prices are wrong. I noticed the pricing discrepancies upon getting the bill, and was told that the menu prices are being updated. That is not "cool". It is very deceptive when an item is being charged at $2 more than listed on the menu. There was no offer by the waitress to stick by the listed menu prices.
2. Menu: too much is crammed onto a single-sided sheet. The print is too small. Couldn't read the fine print, even with reading glasses. The lighting in McDuff's is dim, adding to the problem. Menu should be 2-sided, with larger type, and better layout.
3. List of beers/ciders on tap was incomplete, and the beers were listed in very crammed abbreviated form. If you are not already familiar with the listed beer, you will have a hard time deciphering the abbreviations used.

OK, now for the good aspects:

1. Food: excellent. We tried the chicken fajita and the Cajun Mac N Cheese.
2. Service: excellent

This was a Tuesday night. The Sandhill Restaurant at Gun Lake casino had a half hour wait and was staying at 50% capacity due to covid. Sandbar was closed (didn't know they were closed on Tuesdays). Salvino's was packed and had people waiting to be seated. So, let's try downtown Wayland. McDuff's had plenty of seating, and was not crowded. If I were the owner of McDuff's, I'd be wondering "Why is Salvino's always full, and my place is so empty"?

McDuff's could obtain far more success if it would:

1. Re-do the menu with larger font, etc. Add a few unique entree items related to Irish or Scottish heritage. (There really is no particular reason to name it McDuff's if you are not committing to an Irish/Scottish menu or atmosphere.)
2. Maybe offer pasties. These are common up north. But nobody has them in southern Michigan. Maybe corned beef and cabbage (even tho this is not really Irish, I know). Maybe smoked salmon items. Maybe shepherd's pie.
3. Make the on-tap beer list a prominent feature.
4. Hire enough servers to accommodate more customers. There was only one server when we were there. This would not be adequate for serving more customers.

We had not been here for at least 2 years -- partly due to covid 19 of course. But my previous visit 2 or 3 yrs ago was a bust. We had out-of-town guests with us, and we were seated at a booth. The place was not busy. But, we waited for 20 minutes, and no server even acknowledged our presence. So, we left. Even though it wasn't busy, the service staff could not supply even minimal service. That left a sour taste in my mouth, and we avoided McDuff's after that experience. Our recent visit was good, but we noticed lack of help.

But this place has a lot going for it: location, parking, cook staff, menu, service. With a bit of effort, McDuff's would be a...

Waitress was pleasant. We both ordered a Cowboy Burger, which was supposed to come with "crispy fried onions". The burgers came served on a metal dish, that had a waxed paper type liner covering. The meat tasted great, but the burger was quite messy so we were eating them with a fork & knife. (The bun even seemed like it had melted butter or something on top of it, quite messy)Even before we started eating them, the wax paper was already greasy, & pretty much disintegrating. We had to be careful not to eat any little bits of greasy, disintegrating waxed paper. Then we noticed the burgers did not have crispy fried onions, they had a little bit of greasy onions, no batter, not crispy. I pointed it out to the waitress, telling her we were hoping for crispy fried onions on those burgers. She said said she'd check with the cook. After a long time, she came back & said the cook said they were out of the crispy fried onions, so that's why we didn't get them. By that time one of us was done with their burger, the other chose only to eat half of it because of it not being what we ordered, and having to watch out for the wax paper bits. We told her we were disappointed. Though the meat itself was good, as were the tater tots, the rest of it was greasy, and we feel if they were out of something like that they should have told us before we ordered it. Frustrating that nothing was...

The food was really good, service left me wondering if maybe I was invisible. Bartender served us and after asking if my girlfriend wanted sour cream or ranch for out potato skins and us telling her we wanted both We received neither So I went to the bar to ask for The condiments and was ignored for about 3 minutes standing there while she was on her phone or counting her tips or something and I know she saw me. After We paid our bill using the QR code and left a better tip than Bartender deserved given the service we received, We all stepped out the back door area to use the restroom and while I was waiting for the restroom I heard the bartender coming through the bar telling everyone in the bar that we had not paid our bill and came out and said to us You guys need to pay your bill. I informed her that we had already paid our bill using the QR code and she basically called me a liar saying that it didn't show up in her system. Not to mention their beer selection was limited to domestic beers other than All day IPA. I suppose if you are a very patient person you could have a decent experience there because the food was good. I felt like the bartender could have at least apologized for telling everyone in the restaurant that we didn't pay our bill. She just blamed it on the computer system like it was okay that she embarrassed us in front of the Bar...