The Lodge & Stage 81

I’ve been coming here for years, and have seen this place evolve since day 1. Literally, my mom and I showed up opening night to try it, many years ago now. I’ve spent birthdays here drinking fishbowl drinks and yelling at Buck Hunter for not shooting the deer I aimed at, even though there was no money entered. And I’ve come up here quite a bit to play pool and throw darts. Strange that I’ve never reviewed the place, but, lets give it a go.
Food — it’s really hit and miss. I’ve had burgers here that were really good (breakfast burger for example) and I have had others that are so bad of misses, you wonder why they even tried. or if they did at all (black and blue). The salads are pretty solid, the buffalo chicken and strawberry chicken are by far and away the better ones. Most of the wraps are ok, nothing to write about really.
Service is generally solid. It’s a real local, neighborhood kind of place, so the service is normally never too bad, unless it’s busy and someone has called in. The other night when Ashley and I went up for some pool and darts, service was spectacular even though we were off in our own little world away from the bar area in the pool/​darts area.
All in all, nightly specials, solid happy hour, darts, pool, buck hunter, and a solid homey-​neighborhood hangout kind of place give it 3 stars with the hit-​miss food.
Oh yeah, it’s next to Bills Gun Shop in Robbinsdale. So, don’t worry if you hear gun fire. I’ve been standing at the urineole many a times and thought I was getting shot at thanks to the range next door.

Happy hour 2−4-1s are the only good thing about this place. Our bartender (Tara?) was honestly one of the worst bartenders I’ve ever encountered. She was inattentive and rude. It was my friend’s birthday and the bartender kept repeatedly ignoring us. She was too busy flirting with the men at the bar and only paying attention to the regulars. Super unfriendly. And worst of all, she happened to be the manager on duty. This is not the first time I’ve had poor bar service there, and I won’t be back. The food is substandard as well.

Went here Monday afternoon for a break in the day. Chris was tending bar at 5pm and was friendly fun and fast. I was entertained and he pores a dang good drink! I’d love to go to any bar where he’s tending it. Can’t say it’s outstanding but, definitely worth a stop.

The service is very slow, and I was not impressed with the Bloody Mary– but overall I really like the atmosphere and I would come back and give it another shot.

I gave this place one more try, because we had a groupon and the menu online sounded amazing. Got to the place and the menu was COMPLETELY different. Very disappointed. $ 13 for a plain burger and fries at a hole in the wall establishment is ridiculous. Our server was nice enough, but once again the wait/​bar staff were way more interested in each other and their cell phones than the customers. I will be very surprised if this place stays in business much longer.

New management big thumbs down. Price point on the new menu is way off for the food quality. Biggest disappointment is the service. Terrible. Need more servers on or better trained that can handle the volume. Need a smaller menu, something that can execute better. Disappointment overall, used to be a good place, not anymore. Sad.

Bloody Mary bar is great. Food is pretty good in general. But if I had one complaint… don’t advertise bingo when you don’t have it. I’ve been coming up here after the kids go home each Sunday HOPING for bingo. The staff doesn’t even know if it will happen, but yet you have posters advertising it. Thank you.

Stopped in on a Saturday afternoon. There was one person working the bar, and one server. For such a big place, it seemed a little thin staffed. Ordered the wings appetizer, which took a while, considering only two other tables were taken.
The wings were very basic, with bland sauce, and few celery sticks. For $ 10, it was a big letdown.
There probably are much better options in the area!

Horrible service… ordered appetizer and didnt receive. …also no refills… horrible management!

Service was terrible. Out of three of the four things we wanted to drink. Now I know not to expect a FAB meal but it was waayy over priced! Save your money! Establishment has gone downhill…

For as small a town as Robbinsale is, we definitely have a spectrum when it comes to restaurants.
We have Travail, one of the best restaurants in the country (or more accurately at the moment, Pig Ate My Pizza, where for $ 20 you can get the best pizza you’ve had in your life plus a beer to wash it down).
Just as nearby is the Birdtown Café, where the emphasis is on «homestyle comfort food» in the sense that most modern moms and dads are absolutely exhausted at mealtime, and want nothing more than to plonk down on the table a large portion of something that is hot and didn’t take too much work or too many ingredients to make, so the kids will feel full and simmer down for a while.
I’m not looking for haute cuisine, just something a notch or two above the frozen Bertolli meal in a bag I can dump into a pan myself. And I feel that the Lodge, open again under new management, is perfectly poised to rule that kind of middle ground.
The «tatchos» are still there, although they do seem a little lighter and less greasy. It’s tough to explain why this tater tots/​nachos combo works so well, or why it isn’t a regular thing everywhere, but hey, whatever. The beer selection is still good, with some nice local choices. Burgers are still about $ 9 to $ 12, so they had better be good, and not just large. I had the poutine, which is I believe a new addition.
This was… okay. Pretty good. The cheese curds are nice and light, not overly-​breaded or greasy. And there are plenty of them, which is an excellent sign. Of course, if you’re making *real* poutine, the curds are not supposed to be breaded or fried at all. They’re meant to start out «raw,» and the heat from the fries below and the gravy above is supposed to let them get all gooey and melted.
The fries were your basic bar fries, and I seriously doubt they came into the restaurant as actual potatoes; more likely they were frozen, in a bag. I would _​love_​to be wrong about that, but don’t think I am. The gravy was nice and peppery, and wasn’t overly salty, but it seemed a tad too thick to me. At Thankgsiving, this gravy would politely keep to itself and stay out of the green beans like a good Minnesota neighbor, but poutine gravy should flow better and coat all the fries, not just the ones on top. Again, it *may* have been homemade (using too much cornstarch), or it may have come from a jar and then had some tweaks and additions. That I couldn’t tell is probably not the best sign ever.
Our little group was really just there for beers and apps, so it’ll take some repeat visits to form a true opinion. This early scouting trip shows some decent potential. My friendliest possible advice would be to try and differentiate themselves from the previous place, starting with the food.
Special mention goes to our server Clara, for being funny and friendly, and never really letting it show how obviously over-​extended she was.
It might have been nice, especially for a place newly opened, to have a manager walking around and checking on people. I guess Unilocal will have to do.
PROS:
— Same charmingly cheesy log cabin style
— Same laid-​back atmosphere
— Decent selection of bar-​food basics and beers, plus burgers etc.
— Cheese curds and tots are less greasy than previously
— Totchos: new and improved!
CONS:
— Same gigantic sprawling floor plan, and the noise and inefficiency that comes with it
— Some questions about what’s actually cooked there, versus just heated up and slapped together
— Some logistical issues that hopefully will be worked out in time

I’ve been here many times before and I’m surprised that the food keeps getting better and better. Okay it’s a dive bar but the steak and Mac I just have is better than some upscale restaurants we go to. Definitely coming back!

Probably a 3.5 star place but I’m opting for 4 stars since this place seems to have a undue bad rap on Unilocal.Nice clean place, good bar food. Service was excellent — I took my boys out to dinner and the servers were very friendly to them. Decent drink prices too if you are just imbibing.

The food here was something I only had tried in the bar — and only tater tots. But they were good so we took a chance.
WOW — excellent burgers. My husband and child woofed them down. And the fruit side with the kids meal was AMAZING! Fresh and an excellent variety. Super impressed.
I loved my Walleye Sandwich was SOOOO good. The only suggestion I would make is to actually give a WEDGE of lemon, not a dinky little quarter moon like you would garnish a drink with — and use a crusty toasted bread instead of the hoagie. The hoagie was good, but too mushy to stand up to the walleye.
Here is why you only got three stars.
Cleanliness — good lord and for the love of Robert Irvine hire someone to come in and CLEAN this place from top to bottom and the bathroom TWICE. It is gross and makes me wonder how you keep your kitchen. Then make the staff clean every day. For real — this is the only thing holding me back.
But I would suggest you coach your waitresses a bit better. Ours was nice, but she didn’t check on us and when we asked for our check to leave it took fifteen minutes to get the check. We could have seriously walked out and not paid.
And talk to your Bingo folks. They were kind of loud setting up while patrons are trying to enjoy their dinner. it was a little obnoxious and unecessary. But we did come on Bingo night — so I do not fault you too much on this.

My wife and I had a $ 40 Groupon to The Lodge. After a drive through a seedy part of Minneapolis, we happened upon the strip mall in Robbinsdale.
We sauntered into the expansive bar. We sat down at a high table on the side of the bar and I ordered a Rush River Bubble Jack IPA. Yummy. Lots of hops, very fresh tasting.
My wife got the Diet Coke action. She ordered a side salad to enjoy.
I had perused the menu on the Internet for the week before and I knew I wanted the stuffed walleye with crab inside. I subbed the vegetable medley over the mashed potatoes and got a side salad instead of the fries.
Our server was a really cool guy, checked on us often, but not too much so. He refilled my wife’s beverage often.
The side salads were good size and the dressings were really great. Lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions.
The walleye had a great crispy crust with lots of luscious crab meat surrounding it. They said there was going to be a sauce on top, which never came out. It would have helped with the dryness of the entrée. I really would have like the remoulade they promised, but I didn’t realize it was missing until a few bites in.
Overall, a cool place. If I could give it 3 ½, I would, but when they brought the bill out, they added the gratuity onto it. They actually hurt their tip because I tip BIG on Groupon meals, but I don’t like being told I have to tip.
I mean it was just myself and one more. Very uncool to put a gratuity line on the bill.

A group of my friends go out every Friday night for dinner all over the Metro. I was tasked to find some place new for us. The Lodge of Robbinsdale came up on a search, so I put the word out that we would be going there on Friday, September 14^th. After our meal, I was ashamed that I recommended this place to our group.
We typically have a group of at least 12 – 14 on average each week, and we ask the server to split up our bill. So we are patient and understanding, to a point, because we know a group of our size is not the average size table.
Our server’s name was ‘Strawberry’, and that should have given us a clue right there to get up and make a dash for the door. Both the bar and the restaurant had a fair number of people, but I wouldn’t say it was ‘busy’, because they were not filled to capacity in either location.
It took almost 20 minutes for us to get drinks. That was clue #2 that bolting to the door and finding another place may get us better service. There were at least five or six servers we could see, and yet it was like Strawberry was working by herself.
We placed our orders and waited again. She swung to promise refills on drinks, but we constantly had to reminder her. When starters, soups, and salads came out, we were asked by several people several times «Who had the salad with ranch?» We made sure to check around the table and no one did, and yet they kept trying to push the salad.
Orders arrived one hour after we had been seated and the food was less than stellar. While I have to admit that the ‘Totchos’ (Nachos made with tater tots) were decent and filling, everything else was either swimming in grease, tasteless or over cook. Several of our group complained that the fish and chips were fried more than avid tanner Patricia Krentcil (AKA Tanning Booth Mom).
Again, we understand this happens with a group our size sometimes, but Strawberry remained consistent and screw up bills, mixing up orders. What’s the point of writing stuff down if you can’t keep track of it? It took another 15 minutes to square up bills when some of couldn’t run fast enough out of the place.
We all chalked it up to experience, but we will never be back, nor would we recommend The Lodge of Robbinsdale to anyone. Not even Tanning Booth Mom.

Gotta knock em down a star. I recently went there for lunch and drinks with my family. The food was still good as usual, but the menu had shrunk tremendously and the prices of both food and drinks have gone up. (Alcoholic drinks)
Not to mention, I used to love the Long Islands here, as well as a few others, and maybe it was just the bartender at the time, but the drinks were pretty bad. Was dissapointing on a hot, hot, humid day.
Service was friendly as usual, but took a while to get back to you, even though the bar/​restaraunt was practically dead.
I would knock em down another notch, because they took away a few pretty good night specials, but they brought back pool tables and darts, and that my friends, is why they are still a-​ok.
Also if you got some 1’s or 5’s and need to do laundry, they got a change machine…
Muahahaha

Being that The Lodge is walking distance from my house it is a great place to go to meet up with friends, have a few drinks with my husband or have dinner with our family. There are things that I love but also can’t stand.
The food is delicious in my opinion. I have never been unhappy with the food. Their menu is large but I think a bit over priced for a small community like Robbinsdale. It is not your typical bar food, much more restaurant setting even while in the bar or gaming area. Nonetheless the food is tasty.
Service is usually slow. I have never been served within minutes not even while sitting at the bar. The servers take their time and always spoil their «older or regulars» long before looking in our direction. This part really sucks because we enjoy the atmosphere and the space of The Lodge.
Everything is overpriced. We went in this past Friday for Whiz Bang Days and they didn’t have ANY specials. None. I was shocked. It was $ 4.75 for drinks and no discount on apps. Every other place in the community celebrates Whiz Bang Days, they advertise to come in for it but then offer nothing to their patrons in return.
Overall, the convenience and food are the reasons I go there. Service is the reason I make sure I have a lot of time on my hands.

Where to start? My friend and I visited on a Saturday night. There were maybe 5 people at the bar and maybe four in the dining area. A band was setting up to play. The first thing I noticed was that the food was EXPENSIVE. I ordered a reuben, which I assumed would be large because it was $ 9. NINE DOLLARS for a SANDWICH. Yes.
Anyhow, I got it with fries. My friend ordered prime rib and some chicken wild rice soup. I had asked for a side salad and the waitress came back and said, «If you want a salad it’s going to be an extra five dollars.» What? For a salad? I can get a whole bag of salad mix for $ 2.50. I declined.
My friend’s soup came out and it was more like casserole. It didn’t even come off the spoon when tipped upside down. I tried it (with a fork) and it was salty. No crackers were brought out to go with it.
Anyhow, our food finally came out. My sandwich had about ¾″ of filling in it. For $ 9. The layer of saurkraut was just a sliver. The layer of thousand island was maybe a nanometer at the most. ;) Anyhow, the fries were good at least. And the sandwich was good, despite the small size. I had to ask for extra dressing though.
My friend’s plate came with a slab of meat and a scoop of potatoes on it. Nothing was on the potatoes. Nothing. She asked the waitress for butter. The waitress came back eventually and said, «I am really sorry but we’re all out of butter.» What? A restaurant is out of butter? Seriously? Moving on, the prime rib she ordered was supposed to be medium rare and it came out almost well done. It was dry and gross. She didn’t get any vegetables, either. It was a very bland-​looking plate.
We did stay afterwards to listen to the band a little bit (that took at least a half hour break in between sets). One small bright spot was that they had $ 2 mystery bottled beers. I got to try out some new ones.
So in summary, the prices were ridiculous, the preparation of food poor, and it was very slow in there. Now I know why.

One word. Totchos. Such a delicious word. What are totchos? They are nachos but instead of chips, you get tater tots. We had the Texan Totchos. They were awesome. And huge. You could probably order these for two people and be quite satisfied with one other appetizer.
We did make the mistake of ordering a main course, if you can call burgers a main course, but clearly, after the appetizer, we had way too much food. The Bluchee Lucy (think Jucy Lucy, but with Blue Cheese) was OK, a little messy, but this is probably because of the dressing they put on top of the burger, but the chunks of blue cheese inside the burger were quite tangy surprises. The burger comes with fries, but they do allow you to substitute a side salad for $ 2.00 more.
No real surprises on the menu, but a few oddities, such as the Phillysadilla. A philly cheesesteak served mexican style.
One super thing about The Lodge, is the fact that they have very attentive and friendly staff. Water glasses filled and three check-​ins to see how our food was. When the waitress asked how I liked the burger, I told her it was «OK.» She immediately offered to get something else for me. I liked the burger, just not the mess.
The tap beer selection was not necessarily what I had hoped would be available. They did have Grain Belt Nordeast, but not much else jumped out for quality local brews (wish they would have had Surly).
The also have live bands on Friday’s and Saturday’s. They asked us to stay for the band, but we declined. Apparently, seeing we had dinner there, we wouldn’t have to pay the cover, which was $ 7 for that evening.
It seemed like an okay place to see some music, but I wasn’t a fan of the band that was playing. Good to know for future visits though.
Our server was also telling us about other specials they have during the week, with one sticking in my head. $ 7 all you can eat spaghetti and $ 7 all you can drink Merlot on Mondays. I don’t know that I would go there for that, but I do know I have three other types of Totchos to try.