Le Rouge Restaurant

I decided to treat my partner here for his birthday on March 5. It was our first time here. Service was fine but every aspect of our meal was served cool or lukewarm. The French onion soup, our $30+ entrees of duck and steak, and our crème brûlée all came out at a temp as if it had been sitting for some time waiting to be served. Cocktails were good. When I followed up via email the next day, the email address on their site was incorrect and rejected my email. So I sent an email to the address listed on their Facebook page, which did go through successfully. We are a week out now, and still no response or acknowledgement. For the amount of money we spent at a ‘fine dining’ restaurant, our experience did not match and it put a damper on our celebratory evening for sure. We won’t be back. Spend your money elsewhere.

TLDR: Expensive, LOUD, Horrible Service, Terrible Food (COVERED in pepper!). They want to be upscale and sure charge you like an upscale place, but this is merely a step above a corner bar. My wife and I went out for a Valentine's dinner the day AFTER Valentine's. When we arrived the bar was full, busy and SO LOUD! The dinning area was less than half full. There was no hostess, and after a few minutes a waiter came to talk to us and said he would have a table ready in a few minutes. He took us to a table behind the bar, not in the quieter, less busy dining area (despite asking us if we were there for a full dinner). We were sat at a TINY table for two. It was a SMALL bar table. He filled our glasses with luke warm tap water and said he would be back for our orders. I opted for the Lobster and Filet for $50, and my wife got the Salmon FIlet. He brought us some bread after about 10min, and then we realized that we didn't have napkins. We had just run out of water and when he came back my wife ordered a drink, and we expected him to bring some water. Our water glasses were empty and it took him almost another 10min to fill them. He apologized and said that the bar was backed up and they were busy and "I will get to you when I can" !!!!!! My wife and I just stared at each other in awe! Of course the bar was backed up, she was serving tables, making drinks, and let's not forget hanging out and chatting with friends next to the bar, or with people sitting in the back. Oh yes, the people in the back. There were couches behind my wife, and the group behind her were talking about some of the most inappropriate and disgusting things. They were SO loud that we gave up trying talk to each other, we sat across from each other texting. After about 40min our meals finally arrived. Her Salmon was not what she was expecting at all, and my mine wasn't really either. I either expected a slightly larger steak, or more lobster. Instead I got MAYBE two Tablespoons of Lobster covered in sauce that had so much pepper it burned my mouth! It was completely inedible! It looked like there were whole peppercorn in the sauce! My steak, while cooked to the correct color, was NOT juicy at all. The outside was kind of tough. The menu said it would have a Bearnaise. I guess that was the sauce on the Lobster. I DID see that it said "Peppercorn Bearnaise", and I've had it elsewhere and it wasn't made with 99% pepper! The potatoes under the steak did NOT soak up the juices, and the black stuff under the potatoes was also pepper flavored. The little tomatoes tasted as if they were cooked with shrimp. As for my wife's. You can see all the pepper on her plate, and there was so much on and in the salmon that she spent half the meal trying to scrape it off. For all the pepper, I could have used a bit of salt, but there was no salt to be found. You know what else wasn't found, a steak knife! I've been places where you could use a fork, or butter knife to cut the steak, so I tried them. NOT EVEN CLOSE! After several minutes I asked for a steak knife, and he brought me one 5min or so later. By this time my steak is now luke warm, and the steak knife had difficulty cutting it. Oh, this was also about the time my wife got her drink (about 20min after ordering). We ate what we could, and as much as I LOVE Creme Bruele I wasn't about to give them any more money, we paid our bill and walked to Bin 707 for dessert and more drinks (which were both served in about 5min). All in all, this is hands down the worse dining experience I've had in Grand Junction. My wife and I thought we'd try something different, a little nicer, and it was a disaster. This is NOT an upscale place, but they sure love to charge you like it!

Yes, they are expensive, but the food is really good. Great soup and perfect steak. The service is pretty good. We told them we had a concert to get to and they were very good about getting everything out to us in a speedy manner. Until the end, when they brought us the check and then never came to get the credit card, so we paid at the bar. I could see the service there being a problem if you aren’t proactive with it. We’ll go again for that steak though. If they are slow, politely just say something to them. Hopefully they will be more attentive.

Too bad that they don’t have separate checks for a party of five or more. We have a large group of people that live go to a different place for Happy Hour every Wednesday. And at the end of the year, we give an award to favorite best happy hour place of the year. I sure wish you guys would accommodate. I always wanted to check your place out.