This winter (2022) my fiancé brought me here for the first time after our engagement. Tonight after a long day of work we decided to come here with my parents for a pre-wedding dinner. The last dinner with my parents I'll have as a single woman, lol. We came all the way from Sioux Falls with the plan of a nice dinner and then getting back with in enough time to sleep and enjoy the evening. It is currently 10:08pm as I right this and we are still on the Highway. So let's recount this experience which is why we will never return.
We arrived and were seated after being looked at as if we were not in the right place. After being seated about 10 minutes our drink orders were taken. Two fountain drinks, a water and one bar drink. About 20 minutes later nothing, the manager came around and asked us how things were going. She then brought us our drinks. My father ordered a bottle of wine at this point. The sodas have arrived but the water still had not. Our server came with the bottle of wine and asked my mom "would you guys like glasses with this?" My mom responded in the most perfect way "No, I think I'll just drink it from the bottle." LMAO. "Yes, I think we should use glasses." She responded after her chuckle. The server came back with the glasses, but she never got the water.
Then she came to take the order. We ordered three steak dinners. The bill was simple please put the alcohol on one tab and everything else on the other.
This is the good part and the only reason there are stars given at all. As always the food was amazing. The quality and consistency of the food is the best. That's where the positive remarks end.
The server checked a couple of times on our table but did not respond to any requests in a timely manner.
We arrived at 7:30pm and didn't get our bill till about 9:45pm.
We had asked for our bill and it never came, finally our server came to the table and asked us if we would like to close our bill, and asked for our form of payment. We gave our cards only to find out the bill was done completely wrong but the cards were already run. My fiancé has management experience in the restaurant industry and decided that was not going to work.
After much struggle the bill was fixed and ran correctly (I'll update if this doesn't stay correct).
Here's the part I don't really understand. I talked with the manager and explained the issues we had with the massive wait time, not getting an appetizer we ordered, not receiving our drinks or the bill BEFORE our cards had been ran. Her response was ..... I don't know why that happened. That was it. No I'm sorry, no "your server was new". Nothing.
With that said I leave this experience learning a few things. One: I need to be a little more aggressive when things start to go wrong. Two: I need to demand an itemized bill before paying ANYWHERE, and Three: good food and a pretty drive doesn't equal a good experience.
As of now, we will never make this drive again. I love the Brookings/Elkton area, but we won't be returning. This was an embarrassing experience. We chose Knotty Pine because we wanted to take my parents somewhere nice, somewhere that isnt a chain, somewhere enjoyable, somewhere South Dakota. This was our last time here, it's too sad because it we had some great experiences here before...
2025- I got on to help for the first time in years to see this was in my drafts. I contemplated not posting it because of how long ago this was...but decided it was a bad enough experience that we have still not been back so it was worth posting. I still stand by my review and do not recommend this place. There is a great place called The Rusty Nail in willow lake if your looking for a small town eatery with amazing prime rib and steak. read more
