Restaurant Impossible Follow-Up | Kalico Kitchen (Douglas, MI)

For this episode Robert is in my home state of Michigan. He is in Douglas, Michigan located on the beautiful coast of western Michigan, not far from Holland, MI and Grand Rapids, MI. It's one of my favorite parts of the state. Now I have another reason to go, to check out a restaurant featured on RI. After seeing the cleaniness of the kitchen, I might have to think second about it.

Kalico Kitchen | Click here for the restaurant's website

[table]
Problems Robert Had to Address
1. An owner that insulted and swore at her staff
2. Staff are busy pointing fingers and making excuses
3. A dinning room and kitchen that was extremely dirty
4. Grease built up under the kitchen equipment that leaked into the tiles
5. Food that was underwhelming
[/table]

The Recipes
Andouille Cornbread Stuffed Quail, Red Eye Gravy | Print the recipe
A unique dish - quail that is stuffed with a cornbread stuffing that contains andouille sausage. The gravy contains coffee which is why it is called a red eye gravy. Quail is small enough to be deep fried whole in not a lot of time.

Follow-Up Here are some comments that I found online about the restaurant after Robert's visit. These are Google reviews.

"Me and my parents went there after seeing that Robert Irvine gave it a makeover. Expected an excellent expierence. No. The decor was decent. It took us almost 30 minutes to get our food. And it turned out they had a bigger menu than what they gave us. When we told the server, he acted irritated and basically argued with us about it. The soup was lukewarm, and onions weren't on the menu for the chef salad but they were there on the salad. The lemonade was yellow water. There were cobwebs everywhere. It seems like we went back in time to the pre Robert Kalico Kitchen. Don't waste your time."

Not the most glowing review. This customer pointed out they saw cobwebs, so seems like they haven't gotten themselves on a regular cleaning schedule. Let's try another review.

"This was the WORST place ever!!!!! The food was under cooked. We were never ask what do we want to drink. Some people in our party order breakfast. The eggs in the omelet were way under cook, and we tried to send it back to have it cooked more. The kitchen worker said it was the cheese. That's bull I know what under cook eggs look like. The gravy look and tasted old. As well as it was really greasy. The service was very slow we sat down while we where waiting two other tables came, order, are and left before we ever got our food. Don't waste your time going to this place."

Ok that's not any better. Let's look a review at Trip Advisor. Bear with me this is a long one.

"On Saturday night after a full day at Oval Beach, my husband, my son-in-law and their children and our other two granddaughters went to Kalico Kitchen for dinner. We arrived around 6:00 p.m. We had a total of 8 people. When we walked into the restaurant, they were not sure if they could accommodate us but finally decided that it would be OK. They sat us at a picnic table inside the restaurant. Kind of unique but it fill all of us. When we placed our orders, we asked for 2 tickets. My husband, myself and our two granddaughters were on one ticket and my daughter, son-in-law and our other 2 grandchildren were on the second ticket.

After at least a twenty minute wait, our food came. My husband, myself and our two granddaughters started eating our food. The other food order never came and we were now finished our dinner. The waitress passed by many times and saw that they did not have their food, but kept taking other orders. I watched her one time and she motioned to the other waiter that she still had my daughters ticket and had not given it to the kitchen at all. She finally approached our table and said that the kitchen made a mistake and they were only going to start their order now. We had now been in the restaurant for one hour. We were upset, but they were hungry and so we waited. Finally my daughter's dinner came and only one of the pancake dinners for our grandson. The next pancake dinner came for our granddaughter about 5 minutes later and I took it to cut it up for her and the pancake was not cooked. When I told the waitress she said she would get them to make another. My daughter then said just cancel that one and she split the first pancake dinner between her two children. My son-in-laws dinner still had not come. It was a hamburger with fries and we saw many pass by for other tables that our waitress was taking care of.

After one and a half hours and my son-in-laws dinner never came we finally just wanted to settle our bills and get out of the restaurant. When I ordered my hamburger it you wanted it deluxe (a slice of tomato and a piece of lettuce--it would be $1.50 more) if you wanted fries it would be another $1.50. The hamburger alone would be $5.75 and would be ketchup, mustard, relish). I chose to just get the hamburger. When my dinner came it had fries. I questioned the waitress and she said she just put them on. When the bill came, she charged me for the fries.

When we went to the cash register, I looked at our bill and she charged me for the fries, as well as other charges such as for lemonade which they did not even have after telling us they did. She had other items on their as well. I told the lady who I assume was some boss that there were charges on my bill that we did not get. She finally had our waitress adjust the bill and then she told our waitress to take an extra 25% off our bill. The waitress said she did not know how to take 25% off and only knew how to do 20%, so the boss said, then give them 20% off. I could not believe the whole register seen. Another person came up and wanted to make everything right for us, but the boss or whoever she was said she was taking care of it.

I just paid and waited for the exact change and did not give the waitress one penny of tip as she did not deserve any of it.

The real thing that bugged us was that they still charged our daughter and son-in-law and added extras. There was not one compensation for the fact that after almost two hours, my son-in-law never got his food.

I only go into some of the stupid details because the whole night was a nightmare. The waitress told hus that this restaurant was featured in some magazine as a special place to eat. This would not be on our list and we will definitely inform anyone that is going to that area to avoid that restaurant. If I could have gotten the names of some of the other diners in the restaurant at the time, they witnessed everything that happened. The best part is while the brains were trying to figure out our bill, etc. at the register there was a table just waiting on ketchup for their fries and had to wait until they were almost cold and I doubt they ever got the ketchup because the waitress would have taken 15 more minutes to find it.

Never again will we darken the door of that restaurant."

You know I can just picture the owner barking at the waitress when she just told them to take 20% off. This is what pretty much all the reviews were. A lot of negative. I was not encourage by the follow up on Food Network's website. Although they said business was up, one of the staff members said that the owner's relationship with her employees and son has not change at all. She never really humbly apologized during the show. She doesn't really get it. I don't have high hopes for this restaurant continuing on for too much longer. I give Robert credit for really trying to truly get through to her about her behavior. She doesn't seem to open to change.