Peppermill Restaurant

I stop here frequently for breakfast when traveling to the Thumb for business. Good eggs, great toast, quick friendly service. It gets to the point where we don't get menus, because we're there every day for weeks in a row. There's a pretty regular breakfast crowd in here weekdays.

I actually look forward to Thumb travel because I can get bacon, eggs, hash browns, and their excellent toast every morning before heading out to the field to play with wind turbines.

We drove around Bad Axe looking for a place to eat and found the Peppermill, it appeared to be the only sit-down restaurant in town. It was around 1PM, I ordered a hot meatloaf sandwich, and my wife ordered an omelette, since they have all day breakfast.

My meatloaf came with mashed potatoes and stuffing. I could taste the dehydrated onions and celery in the stuffing, and it tasted like it came from an instant mix. The gravy was very salty, and also tasted like it was canned or instant. The meatloaf was kind of bland, but at least it was real meatloaf, unlike the stuffing. The mashed potatoes were real though, and were actually very good. Overall, my meal was the definition of mediocre.

As for my wife, she works is a cook by trade, so she knows how things work in restaurants. She said the hashbrowns were good, but she took a few bites out of the omelette, and pushed her plate to the side. It was greasy and gross. It was filled with these nasty onions, that my wife said tasted like they had been sitting in artificial butter for 2 days. She couldn't eat it. I tried it too and almost spit it out. The omelette was pretty much inedible.

The waitress came up to take our plates. This was the second bad restaurant experience in 3 days in the Thumb, so we didn't say anything about the omelette. The waitress didn't even ask why my wife didn't eat it, which I would think any good server would do. We paid and left, and began our long trip back to Ohio with my wife frustrated and still hungry.

I post this negative review not to be a jerk or a food snob, but because 2 out of 3 restaurants we went to in the Thumb were very bad. This is a big tourist area, and these people are sitting on a potential gold mine. If they actually served fresh food with real ingredients, they would rake in the money. As it stands now, I'm bringing my own food next time I go to the Thumb. Also, it's interesting that Yelp chose to "filter" another negative review, because that review looked similar to our experience at this restuarant.

Steaks were overcooked and the salad bar was less than desirable. The wrap was good on the other hand so if you are going to eat there, I would suggest that. Okay service but arrived late and tried to push us out as it was getting close to closing.