Cold Creek Inn

This place was apparently better a bar, as we were told by locals, let’s start with that. The new chef seems to have a good taste but the atmosphere is confusing when trying to intermingle all of the aspects. When. Walking in there are three doors, pick one I guess, upon further inspection one door has a sign to another door that says dining room. We finally walked in and we thought we walked into the wrong door because we walked into a dark bar. Our host brought us around the bar and we found a small dining room. The menu was high in price between $ 14– $ 28. With a range of steak, fish, and pastas. We ordered the fried perch with duchess potatos and a bowl of lobster bisque as recommended by the waitress. The lobster bisque had no lobster at all but maybe, and we are guessing, shrimp? The food was good but I couldn’t understand the prices for just «good». The waitress was average and the atmosphere was uncomfortable. No wonder the locals even left. Not returning. I would rather go to subway down the road.

They changed a lot in the past 10 years. In the past couple years it’s Been non stop change, but nothing for the better for what I can see. They changed the menu so anything worth trying is between $ 20 to $ 30 a plate. All the appetizers are $ 10 or more. It seems like they want to move towards more fine dining, but forgetting that you can just slap expensive items on the menu and think they will sell themselves.
My most resent visit was the worst experience, and it’s safe to say, it will be my last.
When we entered the Cold Creek Inn, there was a sign that said what today’s special was. It said,” SPECIAL: Philly cheesesteak sandwich with chips and a pickle $ 12.99″
My mother decided that is what she would like to order. My friend and I looked through the menu and found that a small pizza to split would be the most reasonable choice. For some reason our drinks came all at different times and never once did we receive a refill on water. The waiter finally came by to take our order. When my mom ordered the Philly cheesesteak special, the waiter said that he cannot put that order in, it was a lunch item. We pointed out that no where on the sign at the entrance did it say that the item was exclusive to lunch. He argued with us about it before going to check with the kitchen. He came back and said that it’s possible to get the special, but the cook is so backed up, he didn’t want to place a sandwich order in because, «it messes up the entire flow of how a kitchen works.» My mother said that she still wanted the sandwich, and suggested to remove the sign to eliminate further confusion. He walked off and the table seated next to us asked what happened. We told them the situation and they where disappointed because they also wanted the Philly sandwiches. As they ordered, they pointed out what a shame it was that the item wasn’t on the dinner menu. Then he went on about how annoying my table was for ordering the sandwich, and how rude we were. When he left that table, the people remarked to us about how unprofessional this waiter was.
He came back to say that he was just frustrated because there are 50 people in there and they are slammed. I looked around and said that there cannot be that many people in here. He pointed to the other side of the bar that you cannot see unless you get up and walk around. What was funny to me about that was how quiet these 50 people where. After the waiter left, I walked over to the bathrooms and peeked to the other side of dinning. There must have been 20 people over there at the most and two waitresses taking care of them. This gentleman waiter was just lying to us for a reason I couldn’t see.
When we finally had our meals, my friend wanted a side of ranch. After 15 minutes of waiting for the waiter to come back and check on us, he finally waved him down when he came out to clean up the table next to us. When the request for ranch was made, he slammed his tray down and stormed off to the kitchen. He came back and sat the ranch down and quickly walked off without saying one word to us. By this time, we were all out of water. When everything was finally over, he tried apologizing for our service, or lack there of. He went into how it was our fault for coming in and ordering a pizza and a sandwich, and next time we need to go to a different restaurant for that kind of thing. Any time he said sorry, he backed it up with blaming us for something. $ 48 for a sandwich, small pizza and one Budweiser.
I will never let anyone I know go to this place again. There is no reason for this poor of service for mediocre food. There are more restaurants in benzie county that are worth going to. This is not one of them.

I was pleasantly surprised. Going back tonight for tuna! Wish I could say it was as good as I expected but it wasn’t. Service was atrocious. Since it was a Tuesday night I think the junior staff was running the place. My serving of tuna was enormous but slightly over cooked. This time I noticed the limited choices for vegetarians and the lack of any choice for a vegan. I don’t think I’ll be going back soon.

Aight
Perch isn’t anything to write home about, but not bad.
Good root beer.
That is all.

This restaurant would be an excellent candidate for Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.
We had a reservation at 7:30 PM for a party of 9 people. We arrived on time and they told us they had a table ready for us, but they gave away 4 chairs from our table to another large party, so we had to wait 10 — 15 to be seated. …We Should have seen the clues lining up right there and then and we should have just walked out.
It took a while to get our menus, and our drinks once we ordered them. When it came time to order:
— they were out of the baked potatoes
— the waitress told us it would take an hour to make a pizza (we had 3 kids in our party)
— they were out of the cherry vinaigrette for their cherry salad (by the way, there was one dried cherry in the salad and the raspberry vinaigrette was straight out of a bottle)
We were waiting and waiting for our food. You could tell they were slammed and I could tell (having worked in a kitchen), that something was wrong in the kitchen. Customers were asking about their orders, people that were there before us were clearly waiting for a LONG time to get their food.
It was an hour waiting– within that hour we asked for bread. Our waitress told us there would be «an up charge for bread.» Fine we said. It didn’t come out. We had to ask for it two times before getting it and 20 — 25 minutes to actually get it.
We asked our waitress when the food would be coming– and we said in not so nice a tone, that it had been over an hour since we ordered.
She came back and said two people in the kitchen walked out and she can’t take it– she started crying and promptly ran out– she needed a break (and she was also about 4 months pregnant). We knew it was not her fault, she was working hard– we felt badly for her, but there was a disconnect between the back and front of the house.
I heard the waitress for the other table say, «I know, I know. I’m sorry. We’re moving faster than the kitchen.» When they had asked why it was taking so long.
Finally, we decided to leave. My father-​in-​law and I walked to the manager — or one of them (an older woman behind the bar). I told her we have been waiting for over an hour and we would like to pay for our drinks and we just want to leave. She asked what we ordered — and miraculously, she says the order was up. We sat to eat. One person in our party did leave and ate somewhere else.
Orders:
Perch — it was good — but NOT worth the price
BLT– one of the kids ordered a BLT and that was OK– worth an hour’s wait? NOT
Mussels — served sort of warm, overly salty AND they even served some that were closed!!! BAD
Salad — wilted greens, one dried cherry (isn’t this the area of the country known for the vibrant FRESH cherries???), raisins, store bought raspberry vinaigrette — BAD
NOT worth the prices on the menu and definitely not even worth the cost of the paper the menu was printed on.
What’s worse, is that after we complained, they hovered over us in a ridiculous way. When the bill came, they should have at least comped us our drinks and the bread… Something. But they didn’t. Not one thing.
Also, the other manager, a man in a button down yellow shirt — was walking on the floor in a hurried fashion… doing nothing. When there is a cog in the wheel in a restaurant, that’s the time for the manager (s) to roll up their sleeves and dig in their heels and help their staff– actually work by bussing tables, taking orders and addressing the customers head-​on and saying they are under staffed please know we are trying to serve you as fast as we can, but we will try our best to serve you.
Nothing — this restaurant, if you can call it that, is poorly managed, which is why they have staff walking out — fried food and potatoes … Not that difficult to make and not for those prices…
This place, as I said in the beginning needs to be helped by Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. They’re doing bad business here.

Extremely slow service, even though we were one of three tables. The staff stood around talking and checking their phones instead of getting us drinks or clearing the dirty plates. Our waitress was sullen and unfriendly.
We ordered the smoked whitefish pâté and the mussels. The pâté was good, but they hardly gave us any bread to eat it with — about eight or nine small pieces of pita bread for a large amount of pâté. Odd. The mussels were a major disappointment. It was $ 13 for a lackluster amount of mussels and two pieces of bread. In Milwaukee, you’d get a huge amount of mussels for that price. Lame.
Glad to say that we won’t be back. They get two stars only because the hostess was very nice and the pâté itself was pretty good.

Wow what has happened to the Creek. This place was finally getting somewhere and now two steps back… $ 9 for a kids meal really? Also what did you do to the pizza, it was good but now not so much and the servers were attentive but which one was our server? I hope they can get it back because I won’t be back until then!

This restaurant literally had the worst service I have ever experienced in my life. We waited almost two hours for our food and were never ever served. We were not even given a basket of bread in the meanwhile, not to mention we had small children with us. We stayed there because we did not want to offend our friends who invited us. Eventually we said to the host that we were going to leave if we did not receive our food and he said «Go right ahead and leave.» I recommend avoiding this restaurant at all costs. I have never experienced such rudeness.

Very disappointing. Institutional type food. Had the Wed. Rib special. Ribs were flaccid. Place needs a Robert Irvine makeover. Banquet chairs and laminate tables with white walls for décor.

When you’re up north and the overwhelming desire for some fried perch hits you, and it will, you could do much worse than to find this place on a Friday night. Be forewarned, the locals like to eat early at this place so our early bird arrival («sure, dad, 5 is fine for dinner?!) still left us a 20 minute wait.

Our family (group of 20) dined at Cold Creek three weeks ago, and it was fantastic. Not only working with our large group with great servers and finesse, the food was spectacular. The Lake Perch (from Lake Superior) was out of this world, and on Friday it is unlimited. I must admit our group had numerous platters of fish come out of the kitchen. A couple of people in our group had the Whitefish, and couldn’t stop raving about it. Everything was devoured quickly, and EVERYONE was satisfied. A big recommend if you are in the Beulah area!