John A Lau Saloon

Was there on 7-8-13.  Service was horrible.  Our waitress was not knowledgeable of the menu, slow to bring requested items and would disappear for long stretches when refills were needed etc.  Salt and pepper are not available on the tables and were not delivered with appetizer.  Male waiter was rude when asked for them.  Food took a long time to deliver.

My steak was AWESOME.  However, the rest of the food was not edible.

I'm giving this place 3 stars because of the horrible service. We were seated initially in the front part of the restaurant near the door and asked if we could sit further in so we could enjoy the interesting items on the walls, the waitress was clearly annoyed and moved us (there were 3 of us) to a side wall table further into the restaurant. My seat was directly over the a/c vent and I can tell you that their a/c definitely works! We ordered two pizzas and a whitefish sandwich. 45 mins later we get our food. The French fries that I ordered with my whitefish were room temp and were cold completely by the time I finished my sandwich. I was told the pizzas were ok by my company. All in all, scenery was good, but they really need to work on the service. At the time of my visit there was only 3 other tables occupied so the place was NOT busy at all. I don't think I will be returning. There are better places in Alpena to eat where the food, prices, and service are better.

I struggled with this, as I wanted to really like this restaurant in 'Old Town' Alpena.

My family has a local lake house and at least once a trip we come into Alpena for dinner. During our most recent trip, we came into town on Sunday evening and the place was a wreck. The exterior wall of the restaurant was fallen down, there were dirty tables everywhere, and the food they served my 2-yr old son was gross, really gross! (BTW don't get the Mac and Cheese here, disgusting!).

Overall, it looks like the restaurant has gone through better days as everything was just not well taken care of. It appeared during our visit that they were short-staffed, yet decided to take the busser and put them in the kitchen -- talk about a nightmare with the food. Perhaps the owner/manager should take a better look at the operations and perhaps volume will pick up; but, until then we would advise to stay away -- unfortunately.