Boat Works Bar & Grill

Wow! It’s been 25 years since I came in here and what a great surprise. I remember it with booths, dimly lit and full of 21 year olds. Now there are high tops, sunlight and 45 year olds lol.
It’s got a nicely balanced craft beer menu. (Contrary to popular belief IPA is not the end all be all) The prices for food and drink are on par with other places. We ordered 18 wings and a basket of sweet potato fries. A tall Blue Moon and tall Soft Parade, YUMMY! We will definitely be coming back to try more menu items and I’ll update my review when we do.

Great waitstaff! Good food, craft beers, tons of televisions. The best trivia prizes in town. Giant nachos!
Highly recommended.

I keep coming back for the small town feel, the large nachos, and the Amberbock on tap!

Holy hell, the nachos are huge, i mean huge. We ordered the ultra nachos with beef and 5 full grown adults couldnt put away half of them. We ordered them to go, they came in a large pizza box and so massive the lid didn’t close it wasn’t even close. And they are yummmmmmy.

Everything here is great!!! No matter what you order off the menu it is wonderful. And the beer is always cold and staff always super friendly!!! One of my husband and my favorite places to go, when we can get out of the house!!!

I like their drink selection and their pizzas… they do have a very wide variety of sandwiches to cater to all tastes and their portions are abundant. The thing I don’t like is how many TV’s are there, but I guess that’s a good thing if you want a sports bar type of atmosphere. I also find the place a bit dark and cavey, with no windows, so it’s a bit depressing for my personal taste. However, the servers are kind and attentive, and the food has always been prepared well =) I like going here once in a while for lunch, and I don’t think many people will be disappointed.

How can I write a review for my husbands favorite hangout of ALL time? Any night I give him off from Daddy duty he will be here with all his high school friends. Great food and awesome rotating tap beers! Try the nachos!

Went to Boat Works based on Unilocal reviews. I was not disappointed at all. I had the Hot Chicken salad and it was noted as a customer favorite. It was a sliced chicken breast on a bed of lettuce topped with melted cheese, tomatoes, onions, hot pepper rings and grilled onions. It was very good. I also had a drink. They make a good drink! I will be back again to try other items on the menu. Great service and reasonably priced.

Really small place and you’ll be shouting or reading lips. They have these hilariously enormous nachos (think pizza dish piled to a height of 6″) and it’s pretty reasonable prices
I wouldn’t say it’s a nice place but more a place to go after work to hang with the other regulars and neighborhood friends
Service a little slow on food. I got a turkey burger with chips (chips were just the sort you get out of a bag, like generic ruffles) and the seasoned fries were lukewarm and not crunchy. My friend had a bbq chicken sandwich which also came with the same chips. My turkey burger was just okay, her chicken sandwich was also just okay.
Go for the people, stay for the drinks, get a bite if you’re hammered. Not a reason to drive anywhere off your commute or too far from your neighborhood. I’d say it’s probably just the same as anyone else’s neighborhood coZy sports bar. Nothing special, nothing wrong with it, what you see is what you get — except those enormous nachos, lol. Those are pretty epic haha

Went here for a couple drinks with a group of girls last weekend
We got a seat at the bar right away. And was greeted right away as well.
The bartender was very attentive to us throughout the night and our drinks were never empty
We ordered the huge nachos and my god– they were the size of a watermelon. And all for only $ 14 bucks
Great food, beer and people.

This is mine and my husbands go to spot! Great food great service and awesome beer selection… It’s basically like cheers … Where everyone knows your name!

This is your prototypical dive bar.
When you walk in it doesn’t really have a theme of any sort. It’s pretty lackluster in visually appealing patrons, and there is limited seating at the bar and tables randomly situated around the room. The first thing I noticed was an older man, donned in sweatpants and a winter hat, eating the biggest mound of nachos I have ever seen in my life. He was all about it.
I didn’t eat here but I did drink. There was an IPA on tap so I drank that, and it was pretty good. I think it was $ 6, which is pretty standard for craft beers at most places these days. They have the cheaper macrobrews at obviously cheaper prices, like your Bud Lights and all that.
The people here is probably why people keep coming back. Upon observation it seemed like many people came in groups, or just knew others by being bar friends and chatting it up. It’s definitely a non-​threatening place where strangers (who may or may not be intoxicated — probably are) will talk with you. That was my experience at least, and it made things more interesting.
I will say that the median age of this place seemed to be in the 40’s, but I am basing that off a visit or two. It’s a cool little dive to grab a brew. Pretty good music, too.

This is THE best place to go in St. Clair Shores if you want a incoherent drunk to babble in your ear about bullshit you don’t care about. I’m all for talking to people and meeting new people and what-​not, but this place has the drunkest of drunks.
The food is not worth dealing with the drunks trying to convince you of their alcoholic status whilst spitting in your face and breathing booze on you. The kind servers are not worth a crippling alcoholic recanting yet another story of his glory days of «nailing chicks.»
I’m not a classy person, trust me. For Christ’s Sake my favorite food is Taco Bell, but this place is a little too drunkard for me.

Boatworks is my favorite bar in the universe. It has a great relaxed atmosphere where you don’t feel like a piece of meat when you walk in. The staff is fabulous. Everyone loves you when you walk in.
There has to be a 5 star chef in the back because the food is fabulous! I suggest the Buffalo Chicken Salad with a side of sweet potato fries! Magnificent!

This bar was packed. There are a lot of tv’s, it isn’t my scene. However — the food was great. I got the black n blue burger and we shared sweet potato fries. My burger had the perfect amount of blue cheese on it. The fries were crispy and awesome. The waitress was nice. Overall a good experience!

Growing up in St. Clair Shores, I knew about Boat Works long before I was old enough to even have an interested in alcohol. It was the neighborhood spot… the place my parents and the parents of my friends would all meet up on the rare occasions they could pawn us off on a sitter for the night. Flash forward to adulthood, and Boat Works is still the place that all my old high school classmates now hang out as well. We joke «who needs to plan a reunion? Just go to Boat Works on a Saturday.»
It’s not large, or fancy. You won’t find any specialty cocktails here, or a huge selection of craft beer. But for a good solid draft or a strong mixed drink, you’ve found the right place. The menu is just as good as the drinks — nothing new that you can’t find in other bars, but it’s all just done really well, from the salads (buffalo chicken is great) to sandwiches to burgers to the mound of nacho chips. Nothing too greasy, and everything cooked just right.
You’ll find all ages here, from freshly 21 year olds doing shots, to the old man who lives down the block nursing his MGD.
Service is pretty good, considering it’s usually packed (esp on weekends).
If you live in SCS, you’ve probably already been here. And if you don’t…you should come here.

Having been here five times now, I’ve decided it’s my personal favorite bar in about a twenty mile radius. There are TVs everywhere that don’t have screen burn, and aren’t from the 1990s (they’re HD), the beer list changes seemingly twice a week, the prices are more than fair, and the place itself just feels welcoming.
The one thing I’ll knock Boat Works for is its workers’ inability to tell drunks to shut the hell up. Three of the times I’ve come here there was a group of people who were completely wasted off of their ass and literally screaming as loud as they could — and Boat Works isn’t a big place. They need to get a hold on these people and know when to cut them off. Well, I actually thought of a second thing — it’d be nice if they somehow hooked up the TVs to the sound system so that there isn’t a slight echo during games where the sound is turned on. For instance, Tigers’ ALCS games. They turn the volume up on each individual TV, which causes a pretty annoying echo. Minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things though.
As for the food, I’ve had the nachos, the Anchor sandwich, their pizza, and fries. The Anchor is probably my favorite thing from the three, but don’t get it if you can’t handle spicy foods. It won’t kill you, but it’s assertively spiced. The pizza isn’t great, but it’s better than a LOT of places, maybe even better than restaurants that pride themselves in pizza… like Cloverleaf. The fries are fries, and the nachos taste like ones you’d make at home, but there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
I normally like to hop to different bars when I go out, but there’s almost nothing to dislike about Boat Works. The service is solid, the food is reasonably priced and enjoyable, the beer list is great, and it’s only about a 15 minute drive from my house. Look no further than Boat Works, most especially if you’re into craft beer.

I was bar-​hopping and had seen previous reviews, so I figured I’d stop in for a beer. I parked on the side of the building, although they also have parking along the rear with entrances at both places.
I sat at the bar and noticed every TV screen was set to the Tigers game. And we were winning! Another thing I noticed was that most of the patrons were dining. Hmm, I’ll have to check the menu next time I visit.
A friendly crowd and efficient servers — maybe I’ll have more than hydraulic sandwiches next time.

I wasn’t expecting much from this east side dive bar. Boy, was I surprised.
The first sign of good service was when the server took my lottery sheets. Usually only bartenders perform such acts.
The craft beer selection was fantastic. $ 7 24oz Shorts was a great deal. They even had one of my favorite brews from Odd Sides.
TV’s surrounded the walls. We got an app and hung out for a while. The server was very attentive and really nice.
Since my night was going so well, I ordered the coconut chicken salad. Ordering a ‘salad’ in a dive bar took a little (liquid) courage. However, I made the right call.
The coconut chicken was delicious! Fresh pineapple, orange cuties (not canned), and red peppers lined the lettuce.
I can’t wait to hang out at Boat Works again!

Beer selection and prices are really good.
Food…meh. I’ll never eat here again, but I would stop in for a drink.
We had never been before, and I asked the server when she suggested. She immediatly said they were known for their corned beef sandwhiches. Awesome. I’ll take it… and you can take it right back to the kitchen it came from.
Dear people… just because a sandwhich has 3 lbs of meat on it doesn’t make it great. This thing was a plate with the SOGGIEST bread EVER with a huge mound of corned beef. So I basically received a platter of shaved corned beef. The beef wasn’t even that good, and the fries were frozen.