Address: | 216 Van Raalte Ave, Holland, MI 49423, USA |
Phone: | +1 616-396-0600 |
Site: | boatwerksrestaurant.com |
Rating: | 3.8 |
Working: | 11AM–8PM 11AM–8PM 11AM–8PM 11AM–8PM 11AM–9PM 11AM–9PM 11AM–8PM |
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edward norton
This use to be a really nice place to have any meal,but my recent experience this New Years leads me to believe that BAD things are brewing here! This restaurant has NEVER been cheap,but they have stooped to new lows for profits that cant be overlooked! BOTH my sons ordered the "New Years Special" a $29.99 deal for shrimp,steak and veggie and mashed potatoe....Well the meal was so small that I had to get a pizza on the way home as they BOTH were starving after!! Another annoying thing was the charge for a salad beyond ALL the meals of $4.95! How can you sleep at night charging extra for a salad on a $29.99 meal???? The bread they served is now horrible!, (use to be loafes,are now thumb size pieces that are ROCK HARD). My wife was drooling to order there famous "chopped salad" and what came instead was a green leafed nightmare,with pieces eceeding 12" long and"poppy seed" gressing that didnt even cover one leaf of lettuce,the salad was half the size(same price) was very sloppy and ceratinly NOT chopped at all!!! Next BAD surprise(there were others!!!) was the bill....We had two bills,one for me and my wife and two boys and one for my buddy and his wife and son,so 7 people total....The waitress was never around,didnt even deliver the meal and she had the nerve to add a 18% gratuity,a $16.00 tip from each of us!!!!! SCAM,SCAM,SCAM...I have been going here since they opened and will NEVER return here. We did talk to the manager and all he did was come back with a review card to fill out? SERIOUSLLY???????? DO NOT GO HERE AS THEY ARE CLEARLY ON THE WAY OUT AND NOT GIVING A GOOD VALUE OR EXPERIENECE TO ANYONE!!!!
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Cynthia Holmes
This is the first time I have ever written a restaurant review, but I feel compelled because of our singularly awful meal last night. Never ever have my husband looked at a menu (lengthy, at that) and both of us said nothing on it turned our crank. It took us a long time to finally settle on our choices. We love to dine out and are not at all critical or picky. The fried calamari at least was edible. It came in a large bowl, mostly filled with shredded cabbage, with a few calamari on top, but had a sweet chili sauce that went well with it. The lobster bruschetta was a combination of what seemed like canned tomatoes mixed with mushy tasteless seafood that we could not finish. It was one of the recommended dishes by our server, which is really puzzling. The blood orange fennel salad sounded interesting but what came was a very large pile of shredded greens and cabbage (I guess). I could not even imagine a hint of fennel flavor. But you cant really destroy a blood orange, which was cut into slices on the edges of the dish. The last thing we ordered was crab cakes, which were just ok. Pretty tasteless and mushy and unimaginative. What was astonishing to us was that the place was packed and we had to wait 40 minutes to be seated. I cannot believe anyone in their right mind would return to this restaurant after eating there once. We regret the 100 bucks we dropped on such a poor meal. We did split a bottle of Chardonnay which redeemed the meal somewhat and we also used in lieu of dessert. We decided not to tread further into the menu.
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A Private User
I recently had the WORST service here. I wanted to show some friends the Holland area as they had never been before. I thought Boatwerks would be a great place because they are in a great location and I had previously had good experiences here. Our waitresss name was Sam G. She took our drink order and it took about 20 minutes to get a first round of drinks. She did not take our order at that time and we were finished with our drinks before we could even order. She walked past our table twice grabbed her tip off another table, looked at our empty glasses, and just kept walking. Eventually we had to get up to find another employee to ask him to get our server. About 20 minutes later, she came back to take our order. Said shed bring bread (never got to us). We waited about another 30 minutes for our second round of drinks and about 20 more for our food. She never came back except to bring us our check. Needless to say we werent planning on leaving a very good tip. Our bills were split into two. One payed cash and the other card. The cash bill was about $65 and they left $80, wanting change. She brought back the credit card slip, but kept the cash for herself and ran away before we could say anything. I am embarrassed that I took these people here and that this was their first impression of Holland. I will not be returning.
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Jessica Donakowski
We had the same experience as Jimmy Rodriquez. Wait time was much longer than we were told. The waitress wasnt friendly and our drinks werent brought out for at least 20 minutes. Another long wait on appetizers and food. The food was almost cold. I had the fish tacos and my husband had the jerk chicken. His chicken was dry and cold. His plate was covered in little black things (maybe a bunch of seeds or black rice?) and it didnt taste good. There were empty seats around us as well. Beside the point, we have three boys including two year old twins. Our friends offered to take us on their boat to go have dinner at Boatwerks and then take a boat ride on Lake Michigan. We rarely get a night out away from the kids. Since our evening was consumed by waiting for our drinks and food, we had to quickly shoot back to the boat ramp and get home. The fish tacos I had wouldve been good if they werent nearly cold. So, we spent almost $80 for the two of us at Boatwerks and $60 for the babysitter (who ended up having to stay over an HOUR later than I told her wed be back) and didnt even get to enjoy ourselves.
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John Reading
We were referred to this restaurant by our wedding planner. My Fiancé and I were scouting boatwerks to cater for our upcoming wedding, and decided to try out the restaurant to check the place out. We decided to sit on the patio, and the hostess said that we couldnt have one of the many umbrella shaded empty tables by the water, because of their server table rotation blah blah blah. I dont know about you guys, but after being on the beach all day, I dont exactly want to burn in the sun. We ended up sitting at an open shaded table,a couple tables over from where we were seated, and the supervisor had the nerve to come over and try and make us sit back into the direct sun. When we asked for the manager, the supervisor flipped out saying she was THE manager, and that she didnt appreciate that we disobeyed her! We ended up having to demand to speak with the GM before leaving. If you expect to have your guests treated with respect at your wedding, definitely dont go with these guys. My wedding planner is not longer recommending them either.
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Erin Lindell
We waited a reasonable amount of time to be seated, but then waited forever to order and even longer for our food to arrive. We had 3 small children and were sitting in the sun (we had to figure out a complicated umbrella setup on our own, and even so half of us sat for an hour not shaded), which made the already very long wait pretty unpleasant, despite the childrens good behavior. At some point at the end of the meal, someone who looked like a manager of some kind came out and asked how our meal was going. She didnt wait for a response, she instead immediately redirected the conversation to talking to the children about their face paint. She then smugly wished us well and never gave us a chance to respond. We had a couple of other rude encounters with waitstaff as well, including our own waiter who was unsympathetic to our long wait and instead shared a sob story of his own long day the day before. In the end the food was okay, but this isnt the first time weve had a long wait and terrible customer service. We wont be back.