Freighters

Stopped here for lunch yesterday. Service was really good! I ordered the fish and chips and it was ok. The beef soup was really good. The views outside are awesome, love being close to the water.

They have my favorite beer on tap! Erik the red.
Great happy hour specials.
We love the fish tacos and the calamari.

We went here for a family member’s birthday, and the waitstaff was extremely accommodating for us. We brought an ice cream cake for the event, and the staff willingly stored it in the freezer, and even brought out plates and utensils for us to serve.
The dining area offers a nice view of the water, and is contemporarily decorated. Ask for a view of the water if it’s a nice day. You can watch many of the freighters passing by.
The cocktails were extremely reasonably priced, and delicious. The food portions were plentiful, and tasty. I ordered the calamari appetizer, and it was tender, and crisp, and was served on a bed of fresh baby spinach, and was a hit by all those that tasted it. The macaroni and cheese is delicious and fresh, although I would recommend asking for extra protein as that was rather sparse.
There were a few mishaps with some of the salads that a few of our guests ordered, the staff quickly fixed the issue and gave replacement salads to go.
If you are ever in the area, I would recommend checking out this restaurant.

We ate at Freighters 4 days and nights in a row while on a business trip. Every meal and every single bartender and server was outstanding! View of the river was awesome. Trains and boats milling about. We are lifers here! Breakfast buffet– outstanding! 2 for one appetizers during happy hour we’re finally! ½ price wines on Thursday were a pleasant surprise! White Fish and Grilled Perch were awesome!!!

Ate there after staying at the hotel. Had the Southwest Nachos and they were freakin’ awesome. I would make the 100 mile trip again just to have them. The hubby had beer breaded chicken fingers. He said they were awesome. When I asked to try them, he gave me the smallest bite possible but they were good. We enjoyed watching the freighters. We’ll be back.

Sub par. Good location but the cleverly labeled twisted rooster chain isn’t fooling anyone. Service is incredibly terrible and the food is equally as bad. Bar food, simple. Go here if you hate good food. Congrats, you received two stars because you are on the water

I was very disappointed with this restaurant. I would have given only 1-​star, but the ambiance of the restaurant is the only favorable thing about it. Nice atmosphere and view, but the service and food sucks. I ordered the battered perch with mashed potatoes. I started with the smoke salmon dip appetizer and a salad. My husband and I had to return the appetizer. First of all, we waiting 30 – 40 minutes to get it and 2^nd it was awful. The waiter apologized for the wait; said the kitchen got backlogged. The dip was very salty and gamy. Some of the baguette slices were burnt. The salads were just okay. The perch had too much batter and it was not seasoned. The mashed potatoes had no flavor.
My husband ordered the fish and chips. He asked for no salt on the fries. He was given chicken fingers. The waiter caught the mistake and came back quickly before my husband realized. He also felt that the fish (cod?) had too much batter. We both removed the batter from our fish. The fries had salt on them. He returned. The 2^nd batch also had salt on them. Hubby gave up.
Desserts weren’t bad. Both desserts were quite large and could have been shared by two people. Hubby loved his chocolate cake topped with chocolate mousse. I had caramel apple bread pudding. Sounded better than it tasted. Only found two pieces of apple from the half I ate. Bread portion was tough.
We stayed at the hotel with some other family members and decided to go down there for breakfast the next morning; out of convenience. There was six of us and we waited for 45-​minutes to get our order. There was only 3 – 4 other tables occupied and they did the buffet. We did not understand why the wait was so long and the waitress never came by to give us an update. Needless the say, the wait was not worth it. I ordered 2-​eggs with sausage links, potatoes with request for onions to be added and wheat toast. The onions were added to the eggs. The waitress only response was that the potatoes already came with onions. So I guess it only made sense to add the onions to the eggs instead. I did not return food because I didn’t want to wait another 45-​minutes to get it. The potatoes were dry and none of the food was hot. Three other members of my family didn’t even eat a quarter of their food.
I have no plans to visit this restaurant again other than to get a drink and enjoy the view.

Another good experience at Freighters.
I had the Zip Chick with garlic mashed potatoes. It was very good. At first sight I thought the portion was small, but after eating it I was full.
Our server, Nick, was very friendly and good at recommending microbrews they had on tap.
We will definitely return.

The views and atmosphere on the river at the mouth of Lake Huron was breathtaking. We sat on the patio and the sun was perfect that day as the cool breeze came off the water.
The staff was laughing and having a good time with us and all the other customers. The staff was very knowledgable about everything on the menu and recommended the fish tacos which tasted sinfully delicious.
The restaurant is very clean and up to date modern which was very classy. Everything was wonderful and the restaurant was warm and inviting.
I would recommend this location even if it’s out of your way. The dining and atmosphere will take you away to your happy place. :)

I’ve been here on two occasions and had a positive experience both times. The first time, my husband and I were dining with his parents. The restaurant was still relatively new at that point, open just a few months. The food was delicious and the waitress was nice.
On my second visit to Freighters, my father was in town from out of state, so my husbands entire family got together and came out with us. With a party of near 20 people (including 7 children under 18), the servers did a good job of keeping up with us all. When we asked if they’d take a group photo for us, they were happy to do so, and even suggested we gather near the windows to take it. Again, the food was great… Everybody was pleased with what they ordered. The drinks were also quite delicious and the view was very pretty!
Freighters is by far one of the nicest restaurants that this area has to offer.
The reason I rated it a 4, instead of 5 is because of the prices. Both times, I felt as if the prices far exceeded what they should have been. Yes the food and service are great, and the atmosphere is nice, but the prices are much more than what they should be for the area and location of the restaurant. This is a pretty poor town, and although having a decent restaurant nearby is nice, I feel as if the prices should be adjusted to fit the people and the area surrounding it.

Great view, good music, nice server, painfully slow kitchen.*
*we were told the north end lost power and they didn’t have enough staff for the evening
We waited around 30 minutes for a table though we saw open tables available, but we got some menus and we decided on our dinner while we waited. When we finally got a seat, it had a great view of the river and our waitress was quick to our table, we ordered a couple burgers and fish and chips. We waited and waited and waited some more and about an hour later we finally got our food, the burgers were good, finally a restaurant got the eggs on the burger and they weren’t runny, though they put the wrong patty on our burgers, my girlfriend wanted well done and I wanted medium well. My girlfriend and I shared a small Mac & cheese, which was also good. My grandma said her fish and chips were good also.
Because of the terrible wait time and the burger mishap our waitress took them off the bill at the end of the night. I’d definitely go again, just hold off on the wait.

Slow and rude and or under trained staff. Our server was clueless as to the menu… couldn’t answer any questions. With such a beautiful view of the mouth of the river as it looks out into Lake Huron one would think that they would take advantage of it. They aren’t, they’re squandering it with bland overly salty food. Our soup was SO salty you couldn’t eat it. Doesn’t anyone one taste this stuff in the kitchen? They’re not taking care of the little things… our chair had a ripped seat and the table was wobbly (I used the soup spoon under the leg to fix it).
For a place that is named for the ships passing its windows, they might want to wash them more frequently… They were less then spotless. The Hilton hotel that this place is attached to chose poorly to use this company as its food and beverage choice.

My wife had the Wild Mushroom-​Truffle Mac & Cheese & it was AMAZING!
I had the Southwest Grilled Chicken Carbonara and it was pretty good. The mashed potatoes were spot on.
Would of been 5 starts but they have a very sorry, sorry tap list. I asked for a tap list and received a half sheet of paper that had the beers written in with a marker. Sloppy, wet paper. Pretty gross. The tap list is short but does host local beers. Seasonal beer selection was small as well. I guess the West side of the state has spoiled me.

Tom and I went for Sunday dinner on recommendation from my parents. I had Michigan Cherry salad which salmon and Tom had walleye both were delicious. to my surprise they had a gluten free desert which was delicious. service was excellent! We will be going back there to eat.

Really wish Unilocal had a half star rating as this was more 2 ½ stars, not 3.
To start with the good!
Happy Hour specials! Brings back the meaning of what a happy hour once meant.
$ 2 well drinks, $ 3 draughts of Michigan craft beers and $ 4 apps, not bad! Service at the bar is as you’d expect prompt! Cold Beer makes me a happy camper. They did cook the salmon right for part of my entrée unlike most chain places.
The bad unfortunately outweighs the good. To start with, the app I got was overly Salty and way more spicy then advertised. Waitress when asked didn’t know anything about why it was so salty other then guessing to me in was on the glaze on the calamari. The Mac and cheese was less then advertised by the menu description, ok but not worth the price. The biggest disappointment though was the Bruschetta titled angel hair spaghetti. First of all, the noodles were not angel hair but actual miniature fettuccine. It was overly garlicky, under salted and the worst offense of all didn’t remind me at all of what bruschetta is. Sadly the bruschetta pasta at TGI Fridays was better then this disaster of a bruschetta.
Lastly, Service away from the bar unfortunately was much slower then at the bar, although still very friendly.
I doubt I’ll try this place for food again. 5 star view sub 3 food and service.

Pros:
*Phenomenal menu and food; high quality and innovative– you won’t be disappointed.
*beautiful views of the river/​lovely ambience
*new structure — clean & well maintained
Cons:
*poor service
*lacking professional management
We have been here several times– the chef and food are what bring us back! Sadly, each time we go we are disappointed in the service– it is consistently poor. Professionalism is lacking; the last time we were there a (presumably) manager stood in an open walkway in the middle of the restaurant arguing and «dealing» with a waiter about a shift change. It went on for nearly 10 minutes. It was ridiculous & should have been handled in private. The restaurant was at less than 50% capacity yet our waitress couldn’t stay on top of our meal. We ran out of drinks 3 times and it took her over an hour 15 min for our two person meal; we gave her the other upon taking our drink order.
If the owners get invested and hire some competent professional management, they have a goldmine. It’s stellar in every other way. Sadly however, people don’t tolerate poor service well.

A nice change from PH’s slew of chains.
I never order mac n cheese when dining out but couldn’t resist the lobster version here. Good flavor, not too heavy and a decent amount of lobster (though no amount is ever enough!) Gf had the bacon and egg burger and liked it, though it was closer to well done than the requested medium rare. How can you not cook a burger properly? Kind of baffling but I’d definitely like to try the Diablo next time I’m in town.

Freighters is a great place, probably the best in the area, for watching freighters. Food is decent, good selection of beers.
That said, if you knew Thomas Edison Inn, its very different, and very modern. The restaurant is much larger and Bar much smaller. All in all, it’s decent.

View will be 5 stars once construction is complete. Service confused, faux fancy, inconsistent and food mixed quality/​slow on both my visits.
Asked both times for wifi code, still waiting for them to get around to bringing it. Food arrived slow, today’s fries tepid for one meal, cold on other & both times unseasoned as advertised.
Fish/​chicken batter tasted surprisingly the same off oil flavor w/​only texture difference. Burger last week tasted like frozen preformed patty for both of our choices. Mac & cheese is magnificent though. Today we had simple and the «twisted».
My au jus never arrived had to ask waitstaff twice, the ciabatta bun seemed more like a mass produced burger roll and was greasy grilled. The portion of the French Dip sandwich was terrific.
Both visits we had to beg for refills on pop, water, & coffee. The coffee was excellent.
I hope the service & food improve because their view is worth the drive. For a business lunch they need to have a sense of urgency not slow mo.

I ate here for the 1^st time on Monday 8÷11÷14. I ordered the Byron Center Bison Burger minus the Twisted Sauce and opted for hot sauce and instead of the fries, I went with the Twisted house salad for an additional charge. I asked for the burger to be cooked medium and it was really moist and flavorful– I would order everything again.
I docked 2 stars b/​c I ordered a glass of wine and it came w/​a lot of cork pieces floating in the glass– I asked for another glass which was dirty… lipstick stains on the glass– not cleaned properly… ugh and yuck!
The place is nice but it takes forever for the food– thankfully I had a salad, wine, and good conversation w/​my dining companions to pass the time… Management needs to step it up and figure out a way to FIX whatever processes are failing b/​c Port Huron actually has other nice dining options and people will satisfy their hunger elsewhere.