Restaurant Review: Blackstone's Pub and Grill

First let me say that I think Blackstone's is great. When I moved to Flint three years ago, the downtown strip was still pretty pathetic-looking, but there was lots of construction going on for the upcoming opening of Blackstone's. I think it's great that they were one of the first to take the leap of faith in opening a new business on the otherwise mostly decimated Saginaw Street. Only a couple of year after being open, they're now one of the busiest and well-known restaurants downtown. Blackstone's is classy, historical (the building used to be a men's clothing store with the same name), and a great addition to Flint's culture today.

Cameron and I decided to give it a try when they first opened a couple of years ago. We were pleased to see a black bean burger on the menu, along with a breakfast pizza consisting of eggs, cheese and "Italian sauce." The burger ended up being very bland and disappointing (not that we really had our hopes up- see my post about my Great Black Bean Burger Search), and whoever typed the menu must have had to sneeze or something and forgot to type "Italian sausage" instead of "sauce." That left a bad taste in our mouth, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that Blackstone's is an Irish Pub and was not intended to cater to those with a meatless diet (including sausage). But the purpose of these restaurant reviews is to guide fellow vegetarians through the restaurants in the Flint area, regardless of the type of cuisine offered.

My husband's parents wanted to try out Blackstone's for the first time on Saturday night and invited us to come along. Despite our first bad experience (and a few other half attempts here and there since), we decided to give it another chance. Besides, even if we didn't particularly appreciate the menu, at least we knew Cameron's parents, who are not vegetarian, would surely enjoy it.

When we were seated, we were handed a menu that was very different from what we had seen before. Perhaps it was a specialty menu specifically for the weekend (if you go to their website you can see their full, extensive menu). The menu was one page, and much more expensive than before. It definitely narrowed Cameron's and my options down even further. Cameron eats fish so he was able to pick out a fish sandwich. I was deduced to an individual sized cheese pizza or a salad.

Since Blackstone's is also a pub, they have an extensive drink menu. Although I would have liked to see a wider selection of Michigan beers, I was glad to see a couple of bottled beers from Short's Brewery on the menu.

I settled on the Blackstone Salad, which consisted of mixed greens, dried cherries, grape tomatoes, Asiago cheese, red onion, and croutons topped with raspberry vinaigrette. For the price, I was expecting a pretty hefty salad to fill me up. But when it arrived, it was about the same size as the side salads my in-laws received with their entrees. The "mixed greens" were actually mostly chunky stems of romaine and iceberg lettuce. The vinaigrette was so thick and sweet, it tasted more like cough syrup than salad dressing.

Cameron was a bit disappointed with his fish sandwich, which he said was basically "fish and chips on a bun," which would have been fine except that the batter on the fish was soggy and wet, not crispy and fresh.

So now it was time to get an opinion from those who the menu is actually toward. Cameron's dad ordered a pricey seafood pasta dish that was a lot smaller than we all expected for how much it cost. He had to send it back at first because it wasn't hot enough. However, he seemed to enjoy the flavor and after digging into it for a while, admitted that it was a heftier portion than what first met the eye. Still not worth the price, though.

My mother-in-law ordered the drunken chicken which was supposed to be tequila lime glazed, but she said she couldn't even detect said flavors. Her entire dish was bland, dry, and fifteen bucks.

Let me clear the air about one thing: it wouldn't have been so bad if all of the dishes weren't so expensive. You can't jack prices up if your food sucks because when you raise prices, you also raise expectations. If the quality of the food doesn't go up with everything else, you're going to lose customers.

Our waitress was attentive and pleasant, but very robotic and lacked personality. This just added to the mediocrity of the whole experience.



It's good to know I can grab a couple of semi-unique Michigan beers at Blackstone's (finally, something other than Oberon!), but I won't be giving their food another chance if I can help it, nor would I recommend it to others, vegetarian or not.

As a last disclaimer, I will say that I do know a lot of people who rave about the food at Blackstone's. But after my last experience there, I guess I just know a lot of people who like to overpay for mediocre fare.