Bluebird Restaurant & Bar

Worst restaurant experience of my life. I have been a server so I am understanding, but this place is awful. Terrible server. We were mostly ignored and the place was dead. We got a cold spinach dip that was not edible. We sat for almost an hour. When we asked about the food out server said the kitchen just started making it. We decided to leave and after we were a block away outside our server chased us down and told us the owner wanted us to pay for the burgers we never saw!

I told my nephew that I needed two things when I arrived in Michigan. Walleye and smelt. He frequents this place several times every summer as he has a boat nearby, and swore this would be thee place for local smelt. I now concur.

Michigan smelt when fried up are about the size of a thick French fry. This was a huge plateful of perfectly fried, lightly battered wonderfulness. I crave these little delicacies on occasion, but Musso and Frank in Hollywood is the only place I know of in SoCal that always have them on the menu. Give me a shout if you know of any OC restos that carry them.

Service here, at least by our fresh face server was, shall we say, summer job
amateurish. When I asked her about the "whitefish", and specifically what fish it was  she flipped to her notes and started to read, " a flaky mild...." I bailed the poor girl out and just ordered up the smelt. She giggled and apologized as she stated she doesn't really like or eat fish. "Kind of weird, to be working in a fish place huh?" I guess I nodded and she giggled again, "not many other options in this little town." Well fish restaurant management is one option she may want to cross off her future career options. She was attentive at least, cute, and funny as well.

Apparently this is a locals favorite as well as a tourist hot-spot. Very busy on Memorial Weekend Sunday with lots of families. There is a fairly large bar in the center of the main dining room, so maybe it gets rowdy later with less kids.

My nephew and his wife both ordered the chicken gumbo that was on the specials board and raved several times how delish it was. So look to the specials board for some additional tasty items.

For me it was all about the smelt. I just need to find a source closer to home.

This place used to be terrific.  For some reason the bar has always been better than the dining room.  The perch was incredibly overdone as was the smelt.  The wine was old and not correctly stored nor was it served at the right temperature.  Hopefully, they will return to their old glory days.