Miner's Grill and Sports Bar

My wife and I are on vacation in Park City and have been trying several of the local restaurants.

When we first walked in the door there was no waiter/bartender/employee in sight. There were several people already seated (although the place was relatively empty), and we waited a good 90 seconds for someone to show up before deciding to just sit down on our own. A short while later a waiter appeared and told us he'd be right with us.

My wife ordered a burger (served on ciabatta) and I ordered the salmon. The burger was average and the salmon was pretty good. The salmon came with some under-seasoned rice as well as some over-salted vegetables, so I guess it all balanced out if you could get one of everything on your fork at once.

The waiter was super nice but was kind of hard to track down.

Not a bad place to try, but there's definitely some room for improvement.

This was one of my worst dining experiences in a while!  

But, I got suckered into it from a Groupon.  $30 for only $15; let's try it! Plus, I like to try new restaurants.  Got the bf to go tot dinner after a long day.  He just wanted some food to fill him up and some basketball games.  So here we go, with my high hopes and the bfs growling stomach.

We arrive.  No one around to tell us if we seat ourselves or what.  We awkwardly wait and someone arrives to tell us to take any table.  Ok, where to sit.  The bf says it's like a garage (cement floors) and really hollow.  No music, bland atmosphere, while walls.  It was like a garage!

There are a bunch of TVs, which I guess it good.  It's supposed to be a sports bar, I think.  By the way, their big screen is just 4 TVs in a square, all with different coloring and none of them HD. Who does that?  Lame, but I was still looking for the best in this place.  And, we continued...

We ordered 3 beers, they came out right away.  I ordered a cheesesteak.  I know that's a tall order; I've been to Philly, I know how it's supposed to taste.  My hopes weren't even very high for the Cheesesteak.  We even discussed it at the table.  I said I hope it's 6 (on a scale of 1-10).  That would actually be a good score, being so far from Philly.
He ordered the Friday Special: Fish Sandwich and the Spinach-Artichoke Dip.  After the waiter left, I joked that he might not know that the Dip was to be our Appetizer.

After 25 minutes, I asked the other waiter (possibly the manager, though I'd hope not, for the sake the whole business) if he could check on our order.  Finally, the dip arrived.  It was not bad.  Heavy on the spinach, light on the artichoke.

After another, what felt like an hour, about 15 minutes, our entrees arrived.  His Fish - Fried Fish, with too much coating and not much fish, on a bun, with a few drops of tartar.  

Mine - Burnt to a crisp.  Chard meat that was inedible.  And the fries, they looked good.  I said out loud, "these fries look good,"  took a bite, "but they're not."  WAY OVERCOOKED.  WHO EFFS UP FRENCH FRIES????

To top it off, when the bill came, the price of my beer was incorrect.  The menu said $5, the bill said $6.  I think they are INTENTIONALLY trying to rip off people.  And, I think it's breaking one of the DABC's rules.  We'll see.

I want my money back and I plan on following up with the owner.

They had a groupon and since it was a new restaurant, I thought it was a safe bet to buy it and give the place a try. First impression: they spent a ton of money to remodel this place. The bar is super nice and deserves a better environment than the cookie cutter business space it is currently in, in the weird hidden shopping plaza. There are more TVs in there than there were customers and the Miner's theme was definitely present but not in your face which was nice. We walked in for lunch and there was one other table occupied. The gentleman (who i'm guessing is the owner) greeted us and then let us pick the table.

We got our menus which are nice on the outside but  like a general pub bar plastic menu insert inside. The food is basic bar food  and averages $12-15 a plate unless you get an entree which is upper wards of $20. The server came for our drink order pretty quickly and then left us to the menu. We both had to close our menus in order for her to come back again (it would have been nice had she asked us if we had any questions especially since it's probably a safe bet we are first timers). She approached and asked what we wanted. Half the first page of the menu highlights their daily specials and chef special but there was no mention of these and so as a curious customer, i asked what the daily special was (today is Wednesday and it is supposed to be a wrap). She said "oh I don't know if we have one, it wasn't on the board, hold on". She then runs back to the kitchen (which you can then hear them talking) and comes back to say the chef has "created one on the spot" (yay! a chef original!) but alas his on-the-spot creation was a Caesar wrap. Moving on.  

I ordered a Teriyaki burger (because the menu said it would be the BEST Teriyaki burger I've ever tasted). All of the burgers come with fries and have one or two basic toppings. The onion rings we ordered weren't bad and the burger came out smelling like a plate of pepper. The teriyaki oozed out of it and created a mess (the burgers are on ciabatta bread) but that's ok. The part that threw me was that it didn't have pineapple (i've never had a teriyaki anything without pineapple somewhere). So no, it wasn't the best i'd ever had. The waitress was taking other orders and I could hear the cook trying to yell her name without YELLING her name and when she finally went back, she came back with a side dish of two pineapple slices and said "oh the teriyaki burger was suppose to come with these". At this point, i'm about halfway through but ok.

Overall, the food is not terrible (although I'd be wary of investing in a $22 entree knowing the service is a bit spotty and the food is basic fare. I think they are only a few months in but if they want people to spread the word, they are going to have to up their service game and do some heavy hitting promotion. They are not in a spot where tourists are going to venture and there is no draw for the lunch crowd as the menu seems to speak to both lunch and dinner (no change). I think they need to evaluate who they want their clientele to be and really play it up. It either needs to be a nicer end restaurant and they need to ditch the whole sports bar vibe OR they need to scale it back on the decor and fancy schmancy entrees and play up the quick and cheap but tasty food options for the casual folk. I'll be curious to see how they fare going into summer.