Disclaimers:
- 1. Long-time readers may take what I say with a little salt knowing my propensity to be particularly nitpicky about quality. Please note that in this case I purposefully lowered my standards in hope that it would improve the overall experience for everyone involved. Let’s call it “The Grand Experiment!”
2. There were four adults, we all ordered burgers with fries (either standard or sweet potato) and thus we did not get a very good cross section of the menu. For this I apologize in advance.
Last night Joey and his family accompanied mine for a reunion visit at Ernie’s Pub & Grille, the location which previously housed the now defunct Chateau Lamothe. Being that we had a lackluster experience at the Chateau, we were looking forward to seeing what Burnsville’s newest restaurant had to offer.
Open less than a week, ernie’s is attacking Burnsville’s restaurant market full force and offers breakfast, lunch and dinner menus seven days a week. According to their website, Ernie’s Pub is meant to provide you comfort foods for a “fair” price. Well, looking over the menu and the options provided for dinner, it appears they live up to that mantra with dinner prices ranging from a low of $6.95 for a basic burger (with fries) up through $22.95 for a large cut of prime rib (Fridays and Saturdays only).
We arrived at 5:30 to a mostly full bar and a very empty restaurant. We were seated in the restaurant section and the staff was extremely helpful in getting us the necessary seating arrangements setup for four adults and three toddlers. We were waiting for Joey’s family and our drink orders were taken while we looked over the menu. While I already knew what I was going to have, The Wife gave the menu another once over and made her choice as well. Eventually the entire gang arrived and we all placed our orders.
Joey and The Wife went with the Hickory Burger which is described as a 1/2lb “signature beef patty” served on a Kaiser roll for $6.95 with the option for bacon (+$1.50) and cheese (+.75). Joey went for the regular burger and The Wife added cheddar to her’s. Joey’s wife and I went with what Ernie’s Pub notes is becoming their most popular burger, “Ernie’s Specialty” Oscar Burger. This $10.95 burger has a lengthy and ridiculous description which is too good not to share word for word:
Steak Oscar took a left turn at 35W and ended up as this unique burger featuring our classic burger patty topped with crab and béarnaise sauce on a Kaiser Roll.
In addition to the burger I also placed an order for “Hot” wings and bleu cheese for an additional $6.95.
My wings came out and were numerous but looked anemic and sad. The bleu cheese dressing was runny and tasteless. I picked a couple off my plate and gave them to The Wife to try along with me. I bit into one, then two, three and four before I was able to get one wing’s worth of meat. The overcooked and dry wings were more hard skin and bone than meat. The wing sauce was the usual Frank’s with not enough butter. I passed the plate to Joey, and I never give up wings without a fight, and let him try one just to find out what others thought. The Wife told me they were pretty awful and Joey noted they were simply “FDA approved” something he says when it’s not very good. Overall the wings were absolutely miserable to eat and I would feel bad feeding them to a starved wild boar. In fact, they were so bad I would have rather received microwaved and previously frozen, day-old wings from Pizza Hut than these. Yeah, I didn’t know that was possible either. Seriously, factory-farmed chickens living in their own filth and grime, growing until their large bodies cannot be supported by their tiny legs, and dying by the thousands in unthinkable and likely inhumane ways should not have to give up their lives and have their remains treated in this way–I really think they were better off alive than in my mouth.
Eventually our burgers came out. When they first brought them to us (remember I set my expectations low) I was quite impressed. The 1/2lb burger patties looked big, fat, and hand formed. While I forgot to ask for mine to be cooked properly (medium rare) the char on the outside was nice and The Wife’s appeared to be covered in a thick slab of nicely melted cheese. There were healthy servings of fries to accompany all the burgers and I must admit, even if my expectations had not been reset to the level of say Burger King, I would have still been nodding my head in excitement.
Now, I have had a couple of Steak Oscars in my day and while I wasn’t expecting a revelation in burger eating with a slab of ground beef underneath instead of a nice cut of steak, I figured the crab and bearnaise would really kick it up a notch. Unfortunately my burger missed the mark in each and every single possible way–even at Burger King standards.
The burger was overdone, even for medium. It was medium-well on the verge of well-done. Most of the juices which were lucky to survive the overcooking leaked out of the patty and onto the plate where the bottom bun soaked it up leaving a soggy mess. The meat itself had zero flavor. And when I mean zero, I mean if I had closed my eyes and been asked to blindly tell someone what I was eating I would have told them that I didn’t have the faintest idea. While Ernie’s gets points for a big patty that was hand-formed, they lose about 1914 for serving THAT.
Well, being that I was in a forgiving frame of mind I thought to myself, “Maybe they’re trying to give diners an opportunity to taste the crab and the béarnaise sauce!” So I took the bun off the top, grabbed 1/4 of the tiny bit of lump crab on top and popped it in my mouth. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Weird. Now, bernaise is a cousin of Hollandaise and doesn’t use lemon juice. However, this bernaise tasted only of lemon. So either Ernie’s loads the lump crab on top of a burger with lemon juice or they don’t have any idea what a bernaise sauce is supposed to be. Either way, this burger wasn’t offensive aside from the $11 I paid to eat what may as well have been grilled sawdust with some onions and tomatoes.
I wasn’t the only one to order a burger but everyone at the table tonight had the exact same complaint. There just wasn’t any flavor to the burgers. They weren’t seasoned and even the toppings just didn’t taste like anything. In fact The Wife’s cheddar topped burger, which isn’t at all possible not to add at least some flavor, was similarly tasteless. Known for being particularly forgiving of restaurants, I was honestly a little surprised when she openly admitted that it just wasn’t very good.
Now, as I stated in my happy little disclaimer above, it’s probably not really all that fair to judge a restaurant serving a pretty varied menu by only eating their burgers. And while I felt really bad about it when we placed our orders, I am currently thanking our lucky stars that we did not blow our very limited restaurant budget on something like a $22 bacon-wrapped filet or a rack of “in-house” smoked ribs (I didn’t smell anything of the sort inside or out FWIW). If a restaurant can’t make a decent tasting burger of all things, I really have some seriously doubts about their ability to cook just about anything else.
Now, the saving grace was the service. Our server was pleasant, attentive (in a busy restaurant of four tables), and kind to us even after running away to the kitchen when I replied with my standard, “I’ve had better,” when asked how my meal was. However nice as she was, the manager or owner (I assume) who later stopped by the table to ask what we thought and followed up with a “well is there anything else I could get for you which you may enjoy instead?” to which I replied, “I doubt it.” After that I thought the proper followup would be, “well what could we have done better?” Instead he too ran to the kitchen and did not come back or even apologize for food which I wouldn’t feed to my worst enemy.
Overall, even with the lowest expectations of the low, I found Ernie’s Pub and Grille to have some of the most tasteless food I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I’m not even going to tell you not to eat there. Instead I am going to go so far as to recommend that you do rush out there right now because there is absolutely no way that you could ever have a worse experience than what we ate last night and I beg you to try.
Address:
Ernie’s Pub & Grille
14351 Nicollet Ct
Burnsville, MN 55306
Phone:
952-435-2867
Hours:
Monday – Sunday: 7 AM to Close
See all the pictures from Ernie’s Pub & Grille on Flickr here.
Dakota Complaints Map
Dakota Inmate Dashboard
Loading ...
October 28th, 2011 at 8:37 am
Is Bill getting soft in his advancing years? …a benevolent slam review? What’s up with that? [maybe the old codger is getting in touch with his feminine side] !! ;-) !!
October 28th, 2011 at 8:43 am
It was very Minnesotan. Nice people who aren’t sure what to do with criticism serving bland, overcooked food. Sounds like a lot of kitchen tables around here. Maybe it’ll be a successful formula and we’ll wonder why nobody has tried it yet.
In all seriousness, I always feel bad when I come away so disappointed. I shouldn’t. I’m not the one making and serving the food. But it sucks to see such poor results after all the work it takes to get a business launched. Hopefully they recover. It seems nearly impossible but if there are any good reports I want to hear them!
October 28th, 2011 at 9:32 am
Well with a burger review like the one above I think I will stick with King’s, The Nook, Matt’s or 5-8. Since “pub” is in their name, what beers did they have on tap? Do they have a decent HH? Your review is incomplete.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:55 am
I have not eaten there, but will probably give it a try as it is close to home. In their defense, making a good burger seems to be very difficult, as very few places have a decent burger that I would be willing to pay for.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:08 am
A note that some people may find important: They have only been open about a week. (That doesn’t earn much leeway with me, but in the “restaurant critic” world, it’s kind of an unwritten rule to not do a full/definitive review of a place in their first 30-60 days (give or take) of operation). Anyway, I notice that fact got lost in the writeup.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:09 am
Chad,
The real problem here is that they simply couldn’t even get the basics down. The meat itself didn’t have any flavor. Whether they were using previously frozen ground beef or not I don’t know but I’ve tasted freezer burned beef that had more taste. They probably chose meat with little fat thinking it was better while not realizing this eliminates the flavor. This is a rookie mistake and signs the business’ death warrant.
In addition to the lack of meat flavor they simply didn’t season the beef at all. Nothing, not one bit. And if they did it all leaked out during the overcooking processes they used.
Then there was the rest of the toppings on the burger. I’m thrilled that they went the extra mile and tried to throw some lump crab on top of the beef. Unfortunately whatever they’re using to keep the prices low shows when the crab meat has the consistency of tuna fish and tastes like nothing but lemon. Using Bumblebee-brand lump crab isn’t a good idea unless you’re just trying to say an item has ‘real’ crab inside and based on what I saw last night and my prior experiences with that brand, I’d be willing to be it was of similar quality.
If you have cheese that adds no discernible flavor then you have a sourcing problem. It looked like cheese and melted like cheese but it tasted like air. I’ve had better vegan cheese and that’s a really big problem.
—
What this amounts to is a kitchen that has little to no experience cooking. No one in their right mind would allow something like that to come out of their kitchen had they tasted it. It’s the first week. Every last little thing coming out of there should be tasted, tasted, and tasted again throughout the evening to ensure it’s decent. If I’m paying full price to be a lab rat then let me know in advance so I can turn my ass around and walk over to McDonald’s. At least I know I’ll pay a fair price for a burger that tastes like something.
On top of that the additional items on the burger were equally as tasteless. Seriously, the Kaiser roll was dry and crumbly. If it hadn’t been soaked with oily grease from the burger it would have been miserable to eat. Instead it was just a tasteless and soggy piece of bread.
—
Good luck. I hope you enjoy it and I hope the place gets better because I certainly wouldn’t mind having another place with decent half-pound burgers in the South Metro closer to me than Junior’s in Eagan. However, at this point I see no reason not to pay the extra $1 in gas and get my burger fix at The Nook or even Lucky’s.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:13 am
I have edited the post above to note that Ernie’s was open less than a week. I usually do so but forgot in this instance. Sorry about that and thanks for the reminder MSPD.
Like you MSPD, I give no excuses for the food from day one. I am happy to forgive service issues however. Unfortunately for Ernie’s the service was good, it was the food that sucked. If you can’t cook on day 1 you aren’t going to learn in 59 days.
October 28th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Bill,
While you are stating your rightful opinion and this is your review it seems like you have something personal against Ernie’s or the staff.
Those are some strongly worded remarks.
The manager was asking and offering to get you something different to make your expierence better and your short blunt response “I doubt it” might have given him the impression you would not even give them a chance to make it right. If you have a bad expierence at a restaurant this is the right approach for the business and you shut them down. Had you given them the chance to make things right maybe things would have been corrected…. maybe not.
To each his own .
October 28th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
^— This. Hilarious.
October 28th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Had a great burger at the Anchor Bar tonight.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:21 am
I know some people that live for the the opportunity to have the manager get them something different to make things better. I get the feeling that I’m a bit like Bill, in that when I hear that from a manager I always wonder. #1 – If they couldn’t get it right the first time, why would I expect them to get it right the 2nd time? #2 – Do they feel my time is so invaluable that I would waste my time sitting around waiting for them to take a second shot at something they already proved they struggle with.
It seems restaurants in this region sink or swim based on their first impression with folks. People have a lot of options and if you want them to return to your location once you get them in the door, you need to really excel in quality and service. Even if you are trying to be a reasonably priced alternative.
October 29th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
I think that a lot of people know how to be restaurant owners or managers and think they can open a restaurant based upon this alone. They research what the other restaurants are serving and define the “flavor profiles” and “pricepoints” for the “demograpics”.
Creating wonderful food never occurs to them.
October 29th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
From: http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/29/1627471/restaurant/Twin-Cities/Ernies-Pub-Grille-Burnsville (be sure to read the whole thing):
Interesting bit for those of you interested in the bar.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Oh no! Nothing worse than getting your taste buds all primed for a big, bodacious burger only to have a severe letdown in the flavor department. They sure look good from the photos. But taste is the true test.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:08 am
Sorry to hear about Ernies. as a Bville resident am always hoping.
Burger questions/comments and restaurant related notes:
Sandy: the Anchor in NE Mpls or the Anchor in Superior WI?
Bill: how is Juniors in Burnsville doing? I went to the original place once on your rec. and was pleased but its a bit off the beaten path for me.
was at halfprice books yesterday in AV and had to walk around the corner …the Burger Time was pretty quiet, there were more people in Subway.
We had a light meal at Cafe Maude in South mpls on Friday night. I was underwhelmed compared to previous visits and had the feeling the portions and quality had been revised to meet the price point and profit margin. We had wanted to go to Broders or Pizzeria Lola but both were jammed , and sincerely regretted not going to In Season across from Lola, which i have heard good things about. we enjoy eating out but our dining dollar has to be used to its highest utility and i get disappointed easily when the value/quality ratio is poor. We are becoming regulars at Lola which is now open 7 days a week and is serving lunch on weekends. I recommend it, the wait staff, kitchen and hostesses are outstanding as we interacted with all of them, the quality of the ingredients is high. (we had a mixed green salad for $8 which included generous amount of Hooks blue cheese, and finely chopped crisp pancetta and a nice dressing and the greens were like what my parents garden’s daily picked salad greens were like, and it would have easily served 3 ) its been described as a bit different than Punch, or Black Sheep or other artisan pizza places, but whatever they do , they do it well … and its a simple operation, one big pizza oven is used to cook all the food, so its pizza or roasted items only. I hesitate to recommend it as now i have to really go at odd times to ensure shorter waits especially since the outdoor is now closed.
October 30th, 2011 at 10:13 am
I dunno. I haven’t been back to Junior’s in Burnsville after my first visit as I’d rather the intimate venue than a cavernous sports bar. The Eagan location is less than 2 miles more from my house than the Burnsville location so it’s a no-brainer for me.
October 30th, 2011 at 11:53 am
Junior’s in Burnsville is pretty good. Met my dad there and I got a good burger and fries for less than $9. My dad got that night’s special, a sirloin steak and sides for about $10. He really enjoyed it. Plus our beers were reasonable.
The Eagan spot is nice as well, but not perfect. Went there on a cold winter night and every time the front door was opened the whole place cooled down considerably.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Regarding mulch’s comments on Pizzeria Lola. We are big fans of Lola’s as well and eat there as often as we can. At one point I was accused of astroturfing re: Lola’s. (no affiliation originally) But over the last year we’ve become friends with the owner and several of the staff – it’s just a great place with really good, fresh, creative food. No pretense at any level. Yes, it’s often busy but I think it’s worth the wait to get in. It’s on our top 3 list of places to dine.
October 30th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Lola is good, but $15 for a personal pizza is quite spendy in my book. I wouldn’t go often.
October 30th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
C&V,
I can’t believe someone accused you of AT on Lola. What a jerk that guy must have been.
I need to get back there as well. I absolutely loved my experience there as I have mentioned. Though the pizzas are a few bucks more than the other usual suspects, who cares. They are quite excellent and the unique options are a must get.
Won’t be trying Ernie’s though. I have experienced Bill’s “I’ve had better”. That is frigging hilarious.
lefty
October 30th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
If I could only remember who that was…. Anyway, you’re correct, the guy was (is?) a jerk! ;-)
October 30th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Totally. If I met that guy and talked to him, we would have words.
October 30th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Hey, mulch….Mpls. NE.
October 31st, 2011 at 9:24 am
Sandy: love the Anchor… but havent been over a year, its just never a good jaunt …another place with great owners, no pretense. I agree the burgers are good. My wife wondered if i was crazy when i ordered a burger there instead of fish and chips.
Lola: just also want to say i have no relation to them either. Yes, $15 for a pizza may be a bit, my wife and i have a starter or a salad, share a pizza, i have a beer she has a glass of wine. The bill came to $35, the point i was trying to make was i had dinner at Maude and the bill came to $57. Every part of Lola down to the service was well worth it, the $57 at Maude (i forgot to mention the server neglected us for 10 mins after we were finished eathing) was not money well spent. And i would add i had enthusiastically recommended Maude in the past. With the addition of so many good restaurants in South Minneapolis , its tough to decide.
another pizza place off the path is Biga, its the offshoot of Turtle Bakery on about 48th and Chicago. its seldom crowded, makes a decent pie and again rates high on the cost/quality ratio. Not to mention its next to a good ice cream store, the pumphouse creamery.
October 31st, 2011 at 12:26 pm
You’re right, there are SO many South Mpls restaurants to choose from!
October 31st, 2011 at 5:23 pm
From the restaurant’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=268473599864295&id=248734488504873
November 1st, 2011 at 7:03 am
[...] On a related note, out of the last month and a half we’ve only eaten out on our own dime one time and while we’re not spending any more than we used to on groceries, we’re eating a ton better. I almost don’t miss going out to eat, especially when it can be going down the drain almost as quickly as it comes in. [...]
November 7th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Ernie’s Pub. I ate here for brunch. Order the Creme Brûlée French toast and my guess order the buffet. We also order two bloody Marie’s. The French toast was presentation and tasted was poor. The bloody Marie’s were extremely poor mixed we order spicy, they put extra pepper on the glass. The owner came over picked up the French toast smelled it. I mean stuck his nose almost into the dish, said its was right then place it back in front of me. Then walked away. The server came back I asked her to take it way and we were leaving, with out paying the bill. Why should I? Then the other owner came over said we are making it over and sorrie. We sat back down a waited 10 more minutes. Then we paid for one drink and lefted. They took off the French toasted and the buffet and one drink due to cold food on the buffet and one drink was not spicy out all. We tip then left. Ernie’s pub should put LLC behind its name. No one takes responsible for anything there. The writer of this blog is right, go to Chillies.
November 13th, 2011 at 6:48 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
November 13th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Does John Pleschourt understand the concept of a paragraph? Heck no!
Does he bother to mention that 53 years of experience mean that it is fair to “learn on the fly” with paying customers and inferior food amid what is obviously a mistake prone kitchen.? Apparently so.
Am I going to try this place after 1. The review here and 2. The idiotic response by the owner? Hell no.
November 14th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
From Urbanspoon:
I’m not sure if this is a positive or negative review.
November 15th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Again from Urbanspoon:
At least they’re trying. Unfortunately not hard it enough in the areas that count it seems.
November 16th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Has anyone else noticed that reviews of Ernie’s Pub from urbanspoon are now missing. Also have you joined there email fan club. You should it will make you laugh. These guys have know idea what they are doing. But they know their making mistakes. Look at Facebook and their email club. They admit it. I guess in today’s economy it’s all right to waste other peoples money. Then say sorry, please come back again. We have only been open 3 weeks. Don’t they have over 53 years of experience. Wow!!!!!
November 16th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Yes some of them are missing, also interesting is that the percentage of people who like it has increased to 55% from 33% literally overnight.
Apparently Astroturfing is alive and well at Urban Spoon.
November 16th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
n52,
yeah, a known issue over there. Since I don’t have the tools available to me that I do here I can rarely prove it but when attempts to turf here are replicated there I do take the time to inform them and hope they remove the bad seeds.
November 17th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Well here’s another weird anomaly, I saw another bad review (dated 11-16) on a sidebar for Ernie’s (and 2 other places) but it doesn’t show up under the main listing.
At first I thought it might have to do if they signed up with Urbanspoon for an ad package, but they are still showing your link and 2 other bad reviews under the listing so that can’t be it.
November 17th, 2011 at 7:36 am
You’re thinking of Yelp. I haven’t heard about Urbanspoon doing anything like that before.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:11 am
Ernie’s was one of many Burnsville restaurants robbed recently: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/11/21/robbers-make-quick-work-of-multiple-burnsville-business/
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:58 am
hopefully they caught one of these burglars, but it could also be copycat crime in a different area, exact same description of burglary
http://www.startribune.com/local/134295558.html
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:02 am
I realize that theft is not fun, but when the restaurant owner points to the pull tab money of $3000 “not going to the hockey program”, it makes me wonder why their insurance would not compensate them and properly give that money to where it was intended, or at least most of it if there was a deductible of some sort.
On a side note. After paying thousands of dollars every year for my kids to play youth hockey, when did I benefit from all of those pull tabs? Would I have paid even more?
How is youth hockey a charity anyway? Sounds like an excuse to offer gambling in your bar and not much more.
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:19 am
I thought their Facebook post about it was odd:
Why the hell would you ever think that burglary would happen at some point in time? Does it really happen that often that business owners are resigned to it occurring?
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:36 am
That answer is closer to yes than no. Percentage wise it is more often the employees themselves, unfortunately. The break in that was staged at one of my places in my happily distant past was quite well done.
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:22 am
I guess what surprises me in these articles is how common a practice it is to leave $3000 and $5000 and safes that can be transported by one person in relatively accessible places. I don’t wish burglary on anyone, but this seems a little irresponsible especially if you “knew ‘it’ would happen at some point”.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Thanks for the clarification John.
One thing you’ll notice if you hang around here long enough — yeah, we do love hearing Bill vent. It’s really great entertainment.
But you’ll also notice that many of us have healthy disagreements with him. Some of us try and be fair. Hopefully by pointing out that he omitted the fact that his comments were from your first day or two is evidence of that.
A lot of us also are pretty discerning, enthusiastic, passionate, and very experienced about/with food and restaurants. I live fairly close to your place and will try it with an open mind no matter what Bill says. I’ll also give constructive and honest feedback instead of just glossing you up on your Facebook page. It might not be what you want to hear, but it’s quite possibly the most valuable feedback you can get.
Anyway…sorry about your burglary.
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:02 pm
John,
You are almost as hilarious as the food which your staff served our party. Thanks for the good laugh. I needed that after the week I’ve had thus far.
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:56 pm
No mention of the food there. Stunning.
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:24 am
I ate at Ernie’s tonight specifically because of the review here. I wanted to see if it was really that bad.
They must have made improvements because I thought my burger was pretty damn good. I had the Hickory burger with cheddar on it. It was very flavorful and tasty IMO. What I did not care for were the french fries though. Too crispy. I’m not really a french fry eater so take that FWIW.
My gf liked her Cobb salad. Big. Lots of stuff in it. Big price too. 10 bucks lol.
For burgers, I think this place is at a good price point. I liked mine and I would definitely return. Salads are all expensive, I actually cried inside when gf ordered it. But, she was already humoring me by coming along (instead of eating ramen at tanpopo wadda girl!!) so I kept my yap shut.
Nothing else on the menu really interested me. When I return it will be for a burger.
December 11th, 2011 at 10:46 am
My wife and I dropped into Ernie’s last evening (Saturday 12/10) around 6:30. No waiting, no reservations necessary. Not a lot of changes inside to the old Chateau LaMothe place (we had our wedding reception there), just lots of tables in the big room and then there was the bar side. We were on the restaurant side. Attentive service, no complaints there. The place was fairly full with just a few empty tables. Not bad for that location and that soon after launching, really.
I started with a cup of chili, was typical Midwest restaurant chili. Nothing wrong with it, but not distinctive. I had the Western Burger. It was okay, nothing to complain about. I ordered medium rare, got it that way. My wife ordered the Burger Oscar. Also no complaints. I’d say these were typical sit-down restaurant burgers, nothing distinctive but nothing wrong with them Better than Burger Jones but not as good as Junior’s, by my ranking.
We were not asked about desserts, and I’m not sure they have them. Nothing on the menu, as I recall.
Bottom line, we spent about $30 for two without any alcohol or dessert, which isn’t bad. There’s nothing unique about the place, but nothing bad, either. Nice to have another decent (if not distinctive) restaurant nearby, especially one you can actually get into on a busy Saturday evening without waiting. We’ll probably be back.
December 11th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Wow with a review like that, how can anyone resist?!?
December 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
And you can spend $13 less and go to The Nook instead.
December 12th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Yeah, but Ernie’s is close by. Like I said, it’s another alternative down here. Nothing special to recommend it, IMHO, but someplace to go if you want to.
December 12th, 2011 at 9:39 am
But you gave us absolutely no reasons to want to.
December 12th, 2011 at 9:46 am
Hey, I’m not advocating for it. But sometimes you want to go out and you want something close to home that doesn’t suck. An alternative to Champps and Applebees and the like. Better than Burger Jones, anyway.
December 12th, 2011 at 10:54 am
I tried Ernies. It is better than Champs and Applebees and other other chain trash. Thats about all I can say.
December 20th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
…why, Why, WHY didnt we read your review BEFORE trying Ernie’s…?! You are 100% accurate. Service was great. And that’s the nicest thingthat can be said about the food. Nothing fresh, ALL frozen and gray. Margarita menu looks impressive, but is really just a bunch of coffe/latte flavor leftovers. Did they raid a Starbucks going-out-of-business sale? Yuck. Seriously.
December 20th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
It’s nice to hear comments and I enjoy grazing other review sites to hear the comments that people might not want to tell us in person. However, when I get an email that a new comment was posted here, I often prepare myself for a comment from someone that really has nothing “valuable” to say. I wonder, Emh, what menu item you had. We make about 90% of our products in-house. That includes our steaks, our sauces, our salad dressings and much, much more. My freezer is very small, so there is little frozen to start with–I strongly question the “ALL frozen and gray” comment as it’s simply not true. I also wonder which Margarita you had. If you tried one and said “Yuck”, we would have made you a different one and found one to your liking. I doubt that any Starbucks uses fresh fruit purees in any of their beverages. So, as the GM of Ernie’s Pub & Grille, I simply beg the question. . . .what did you eat and drink while you were here. Unlike the chains, we are eager to respond to the changing needs of our guests and can (and already have) made a tremendous number of changes to our menu in response to legitimate issues. Now, as I prepare to hit “submit”, I’ll eagerly await for the not-so-surprising quip from Bill that slams us for something else–sadly, it’ll be a quip that addresses things that just aren’t factual about our menu, our people, our food or our prices–but I’m sure the quip will make Bill and his cronies feel better about themselves.
December 20th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Wow John, I appreciate you offering your responses. I appreciate you not astroturfing. But resorting to insulting us is pretty bad. Honestly, saying nothing would have been better.
For the record, one of my favorite restaurants is a place that Bill doesn’t like and hasn’t been back to since he reviewed it. It’s not that I think they make the greatest food (they don’t), but we like the place and the staff, the food isn’t bad, the live music is fun, and it’s close to our house. I couldn’t care less that Bill gives me crap for going there.
As a restaurant owner you can respond to criticism one of three ways:
1.) Decide that whether you agree or disagree, a customer is worth having and their criticism is worth listening to and taking into consideration as an opportunity to change and grow your business.
2.) Determine that the criticism isn’t relevant to your business priorities and ignore it.
3.) Discredit the critic in an attempt to invalidate their criticism.
I’m fine with the first and second. The third is totally unacceptable. If that’s how you want to run your business PR, that’s your call, but it won’t solicit return visits from the critics you’re discrediting.
I once read, “Excellence is measured by how companies handle tough situations.” This is a tough situation that just hasn’t been handled well.
December 20th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
You’re absolutely right, Joey. I let the green monster get the better of me. The two of us (owners) are animate about trying to visit every table. If someone really had that bad of an experience, we’d like to think that we’d know about it.
If your comment from October 28th still stands, I’d be happy to share some of the comments from our recent guests with you. . . .I’m sure you can find my email.
To the rest, yes, I apologize for how high I jumped. I can’t apologize completely for jumping, just for how high–the restaurant is my baby and I’m bound to protect and defend it.
John
December 20th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Completely off-topic, but at some point a couple weeks ago, I wrote a comment on this thread and must have gotten distracted before I hit submit. I just wanted to thank you for your actions to help the Burnsville Senior Center out after their TV was stolen. From one community guy to another, that was very much appreciated.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Dammit. That comment was directed to John and the folks at Ernie’s.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
John, I can see some positive comments on your Facebook page and Urbanspoon. Every business has positive feedback or else it would go completely under and I’m glad you’ve got that. And no, you can’t just focus on the negative comments or you’d go crazy since every business also has negative feedback. But both are important to listen to. The positive comments tell you you’re doing something right. The negative comments tell you you’ve got work to do somewhere.
I work for a technology company. The fact that 80% (totally arbitrary number) of our customers like our product doesn’t mean I should ignore and dismiss the 20% who don’t. I need to hear the positive comments from some of the 80% to help keep me going, but I also need to process the 20% so I can improve. In fact, I find that the 20% tend to be some of the most critical thinkers and are better than the 80% at helping us improve our product, identify bugs, etc. Just because the 20% are using the exact same product as the 80% (and at times even in the exact same way) doesn’t mean the feedback is going to be the same and I need to respond to that by figuring out what’s not working and addressing it.
Anyway, I’ve gone far enough – too far, really – with this analogy. Thanks again for your response. I realize your restaurant is your baby, as you said. Our cash and taste buds are our babies and we’re pretty defensive of those babies too.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:07 am
John, I appreciate your comments here, and want you to know that your emails (I am on your email list) are great. Cant remember now if they come from you or your partner, but they are enteraining and informative.
My first visit was not super. It was not horrible, but it was nothing special. I will stop in again, after you have had a month or two to iron out some of the details and see what has changed. I truly wish you the best of luck and hope your place evolves into something special. I would point to Blue Ox and The Rack Shack as examples of places I tried when they first opened and thought would probably fail, but they truly evolved and continued to improve, and appear likely to be around for years to come. So many new places dont listen to the incredibly valuable free feedback that is given on a website like this, to their own detriment. I am sure you get lots of positive feedback. Many people are polite and wont give negative feedback to save thier lives, they will simply not visit the place………ever…………..again.
I think the comment about cronies is far from accurate. You would do yourself some good to read some of the threads on the site and note that people often disagree with Bill here, and overall there is healthy discussion regarding the state of affairs and food in the South Metro. I guess I qualify as number on cronie, as I have the most posts, but I have never met Bill, and often disagree with his thoughts on food and places to eat. I do however greatly value his honesty in writing a review that actually outlines his dining experience.
Anyway, best of luck, and I hope to meet you and enjoy a meal at your Earnies in the future.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:19 am
I once worked for what used to be one of the larger corporations in Minnesota. Millions of customers.
One thing we tracked was customer retention. We were consistently surprised that the customers that most often came back were the ones that we screwed up with and were given the chance to show them how good we were at fixing things. If I remember correctly, about 65% of our customers that we did “perfect” with came back one or more times. The ones that we screwed up returned over 85% of the time.
It seems like John needs to understand this philosophy among consumers better. His admission that he is getting angry and allowing the comments to get to him are pretty shallow. There are a lot of really good ways to react to what is getting to be a fair pile of negative comments on this page, but he really needs to learn how to do that or just stop reading them here.
I am going to try this place in the next week and report back.
Cronie #4.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:29 am
I have nothing meaningful to add except that I’m about to blow by Chad and assume the position of Crony #1! I wonder if it’s anything like being the Mayor of someplace on Foursquare. For sure, I should get a free meal courtesy of Bill when I hit the top commenter slot.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:35 am
Well I have mikeh in my line of sight this week and make no promises to slow down my posting rate just because you other cronies are gunning for one another. I have so much useless drivel swimming around in my head right now you won’t be able to stop me!
December 21st, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Sadly, you all have closed the gap a great deal during football season, a difficult stretch of work, and stressing about school for our 4 year old. Now that my Fantasy Football Season has come to an end, MSPD has provided some great insite/advise on choosing a school, and work is becoming less intense, I will again share my mostly worthless opinion on dozens of subjects that I know little to nothing about on a more regular basis.
All that said, I know quite a bit about food and even more about eating food. Generally I eat food at least three times a day, and usually more often that that. I think I am wholly qualified to discuss food. I also know some little bit about running a restaraunt, as my parents owned one that I worked at for the better part of a decade growing up.
December 21st, 2011 at 2:41 pm
I love the Internet :-)
December 21st, 2011 at 3:04 pm
The ability to do this is what keeps me coming back.
December 21st, 2011 at 3:10 pm
This too is my number one skill set!
December 21st, 2011 at 3:52 pm
MSPD, lefty:
I came to the conclusion very early, and it keeps being reaffirmed, that you two, do indeed know very little on any given subject covered in this blog. But then not many of us do – it’s mostly bluster. ;-)
⬇
December 21st, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I just responded with a mouse click.
December 21st, 2011 at 7:19 pm
C&V, I was thinking more on the lines of a “Merit/Demerit voting system. Bill can keep the thumbs system however if someone wanted to cast a vote against any particular comment the respondent to “said” comment could just enter the word: Demerit. If respondent was really “pissed off” this could be expressed several, if not many, times within the same comment. In other words:Demerit/Demerit/Demerit/Demerit…..etc. We would know who the respondent was plus how pissed off that person was :)
January 25th, 2012 at 7:37 am
[...] Pizza 9. Burger Jones 10. Las Tortillas 11. Zest Bar and Grill 12. Taqueria Hidalgo 13. Ernies Pub and Grill 14. Teresas Mexican [...]
July 27th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
While browsing at Urbanspoon, I noticed that the only positive (featured) reviews for Ernie’s are from people who only have one review under their belt. I’ll let others interpret this.
August 18th, 2012 at 9:36 am
Ernie’s doing a “revamp” during the “summer slowdown.”
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ff4ff9211d2ac1e9b9e630c14&id=c0d80b6c7f&e=9e73cbdb10
April 15th, 2013 at 6:45 am
We too were not at all impressed by Ernie’s. we went for the gf food offerings and left with a really bad taste in our mouth because of both the food and the owners. One of the owners when thanked for having so many gf selections said he wished he could say it was out of the goodness of his heart but it was just playing to a market to make more money. I obviously get that but felt it was in bad taste to say. Another owner told us the gf chicken was gross but maybe our kids would like it. My kids didn’t eat their meals and they are not at all picky eaters. Despite the fact that we left four almost full plates and had a huge bill no one asked why or how it was. We won’t be back.