Lumber Jack Food & Spirits — Restaurant in West Branch Township

I’m giving this a low rating for the staff and not the food. The food was good. If you don’t mind uncaring hostess/cashier staff and a downright surly waitress, then it’s fine. The combination of uncaring staff and rudeness really turned me off though. The atmosphere was cute – rustic, old timey, up north type décor. Water served in mason jars, etc.

We arrived for lunch on a Saturday around 1 p.m. The place was moderately busy – there was no wait for a table and there were some tables open – steady but not packed. The hostesses were conferring when we arrived and it took a few minutes to get their attention to be seated. We were seated without menus because she couldn’t find enough. She came back after a few minutes with some menus – some of which had definitely seen better days. Our waitress (who’s name I don’t know because she never bothered to tell us) actually said “I don’t make the rules, I just work here” when we asked about substituting onion rings for French fries. We ordered onion rings as an appetizer instead. The wait for the food wasn’t too bad but we never did get our onion rings before lunch. She brought out the onion rings after all the lunches were served. She never stopped back between placing our order and lunch for us to ask about them. Once we finished, she brought over the check, slapped it down on the table and said “It will be quicker if you take it up front” and left. I guess I should be happy that she didn’t come over to our table very many times with an attitude like that. We were so taken aback by her attitude that we told the cashier on the way out and her response was “she’s just like that”. Wow! And she’s still employed?!! The staff is obviously uncaring, which is too bad because the food wasn’t bad. The soup was very good – vegetable soup with huge chunks...

I ordered the rosemary roasted chicken. It was not roasted. It was a HALF (at most) boneless skinless boiled chicken breast with tomatoes and onions sprinkled on top. No seasoning. And the smallest scoop of mashed potatoes. The waitress set this huge plate down in front of me with such a tiny portion, we started laughing. We seriously thought it was a joke at 1st. The chicken had no flavor & I was irritated so instead of making a fuss I just asked for a box (to take it home for my dogs). I ate 1 piece and when boxing it up we counted. There was 5 more pieces of chicken that were around 1 inch cube size. For 20 some dollars, we were blown away. He ordered the pot roast & we assumed it came with potatoes & carrots but it came with a tiny scoop of mashed potatoes and around 2 full cups of sweet corn. He did say that the pot roast was great tasting. (The tiny portion he received). So a waitress said that "usually there's a lot more food than that but we had a really large group of people come in". I jokingly said, so the cook is trying to stretch the food? She said yes, and that the waitresses make the salads for their own tables and that our waitress was supposed to give us big salads to sort of compensate. Lol. I feel like we were on a hidden camera joke show. Edit : just now after seeing the owner replied with a standard "email me, this isn't the usual" comment, I read through reviews. Funny that I found one from quite a while ago that basically said the same thing about the rosemary chicken. Tasteless, tiny chunks with cold cut up tomatoes on top. Yep. I know that food cost, labor cost...ALL costs have went up since the pandemic but food quality has to...

Went here just for exploration around west branch.

Walking in it definitely looks like a cabin. It's beautiful. And attached to quality inn hotel.

So if you're staying there super convenient. She'll gas station right in the parking lot as well, so super convenient for all around travel.

Now let's get into the food:

My party of four had the big axe burger, pulled pork nachos, regular cheese burger, spinach artichoke dip, fried pickles.

The food was pretty good actually. Here's the break down: Fried pickles: huge long spears. So hard to eat because the pickle comes right out. But juicy. So cut with a knife and fork. Fellow ranch snobs: ranch was damn good.

Artichoke dip: chips were a little dry. But homemade and still tasted good. Dip was smooth and cheesy and we all enjoyed it. Had great flavor.

Pulled nachos: sauce was sweet so if sweet sauce isn't your cup of tea then indont recommend but the pork was soft and yummy. The chips def tasted like cafeteria chips but with the sauce I was good.

The axe burger was massive: crisp toasted bread, char broiled burger though. Different cheese but good.

Regular burger same thing. The menu said fresh beef but they definitely tasted frozen. The meat was slightly silky in texture.

For dessert we got the strawberry shortcake: had fresh homemade whip cream. Berries were sweet and cake was soft.

The brownie Sunday was huge like the other, soft brownie ice-cream was yummy and whip cream again wonderful.

Prices weren't bad. Check out the pics.

Waitress was sherry. Very kind and was wonderful. :) will def go again when...