Oaken Bucket

Love their burgers, atmosphere, location, and value for the price. While they do have a beautiful outdoor section sitting over the river, I have two young kids. So I prefer to call ahead and pick-​up.

Horrible service. Waited thirty minutes, never addressed by a waitress. No menus. Not even a hello as two walked by. Don’t waste your time or money. I counted six dirty tables. Where is the bus boys?

The place to go to sit outdoors when the weather is good for doing that. Best Caesar Chicken Wraps in the whole area. Good burgers too.

Poor service, sub-​par food quality, and the food being cold when it was brought to us. Worst of all, everyone in the party got food poisoning. Will definitely never return.

Avoid the food! I was a regular at The Bucket until recently. One night I ordered the mozzarella sticks. They were hollow inside. The waitress offered to have them re-​done. The new sticks looked good, but my friend and I were both sick after eating them.

Pretty good. The patio in the summer is nice. An all-​round «ok»

Enjoyed the atmosphere and food… but the missing bacon on our 1lb burger made us sad.
All in all a good spot, with a great location on the river. It was a little chilly for a summer day in South Bend (we sat on there swanky outdoor deck), but our über burger made up for it. They have a 1lb burger that is served on an 8″ bun. Think 4 McDonald’s quarter pounders without the gross after feeling. My husband and I split the burger. I think he felt like he would have to come back one day and do it all himself. I don’t mind. I’ll come back, but next time please remember our bacon.

Hensell’s Oaken Bucket is a uniquely local place, it looks like a hunting lodge turned into a bar. To say that the exterior is modest is an understatement, and the interior is not gonna win any design award either, at least not in the 21^st century. Let me put it this way: I drove past it for _​years_​before I mustered enough curiosity to visit this uninviting brown-​painted wooden structure. The place has that country 80’s feel, not because a swanky designer spent a lot of effort in going retro, but more likely because it hasn’t been renovated since that decade. People used to Starbucks smart hip style is gonna be turned off by the place, but I find it a bit endearing, probably because I’m old enough to remember the 80’s and I have an outdoorsy streak. During summer this is one of the few places in town with a decent outdoor seating by the river.
The food is the typical American pub-​restaurant fare, from the 80’s, complete with self-​serve soup and salad bar, I kid you not. Its claim to fame is the humongous king burger that’s large enough to cover an entire plate, and it actually tastes ok. My personal favorite is their 10 oz ribeye, which is quite juicy and tasty for a $ 11.99 meal. If you check the price of ribeye steaks in other restaurants you’ll realize that Oaken Bucket’s prices are also a bit retro, and that’s a good thing to compensate for the inadvertently retro ambiance.
The service has been ok most of the time. It’s not particularly great, but not terrible either. I’d say on par with other restaurants of similar price range.
Look, if you come here expecting a copy of TGI Friday’s (or any other national chain restaurant), you’ll be sad. If you picture an old local watering hole that it is and adjust your expectation accordingly, then you’ll do ok.
All in all the place offers a good value for your money, and it’s local. Since I haven’t experienced anything particularly negative about it, I feel it deserves four stars.

Good neighborhood hangout but our waitress was so ruuuuuuuude! Act like you wanna work here.

This joint has fantastic Angus burgers with all kinds of options for toppings, try the 1 lb (19 ounces prior to being cooked) King Burger it’s enough food for 2 – 3 people. Cheap beer. They serve many fried delights like their signature Irish Nachos (waffle fries covered in nacho cheese sauce and topped with ranch drizzle bacon and green onions). They get creative with their mixed drinks, many of the tropical variety. The deck and Tiki Bar are amazing! Had our wedding reception after party at the Tiki Bar and had a freaking blast.

Burgers and appetizers are solid here. The one thing that will keep people away is the bad service. We had a table of 9 and had to wait 20 minutes to place our order. After 20 minutes of additional waiting, the server appeared telling one of the patrons that the item they ordered had «not come in». The patron decided to leave due to a work commitment after only having a drink. The server calls out, who is going to pay for his drink? They didn’t offer to comp anything, bring any chips/​salsa after our table had to wait over 40 minutes for food.

The atmosphere is of a sad place that sad people go to be sad.
The food is nothing special, but you won’t be poisoned either I suppose.
I heard it was really good, but the next time my husband suggests going there, I’ll be suggesting something else.

Really good bar food. Had the giant burger which was two meals, even for a big fat guy. Service was super friendly in upstairs bar area. We did not know about river view seating until we were on our way out, but still no complaints.

This place is average. Nice place to walk to from the IUSB campus. The burgers are pretty good and the fries. Good college joint to meet up with classmates and have a quick bite.

Buffalo chicken wrap is delish. Cheap food and beer. The best part is sitting on the deck!

A great hang out. I meet my sister here once in a blue moon and we love the atmosphere. Food is okay, and the location is terrific with views of the river. Gotta love that!

I really thoroughly enjoyed this place. They do have a neat little business here. It felt great sitting outside along the river, with the waterfall as a relaxing background noise.
The prices were totally affordable and the hamburger I had was nice and juicy. My hamburger was $ 7.99, plus I ordered a small side of fries for $ 1.99 (the portion of fries was generous – if you don’t want fries, all hamburger orders come with chips). Other hamburgers and sandwiches were $ 5.99. They also had fish, chicken, and steak entrees under $ 11.00, I believe. We even had the jalapeño popper appetizer ($ 5.99), which was great. Anyway, I appreciated the fact that the hamburger meat was real meat, and not some disgusting frozen patty. Students get a $ 1.00 discount, so bring your I.D.
According to information on the back of the menu, I read that they have a boat dock and a pontoon you can rent from them. Pretty cool.
I will recommend this place to family and friends.

I gave this place 3 chances. I heard this place was famous for it’s burgers.
MY BURGER WAS TERRIBLE!!!
The meat actually tasted BAD!
I literally thought to myself «I already wasted money on this mess– I don’t have to suffer more by having to eat it!»
On the 2^nd visit I had a rude, bad attitude server.
On the 3^rd visit the place was almost empty on a Saturday night about 8PM– the other customers I did see in there looked kind of «low-​life».
The food was not good this time either.
I would not eat here again if they gave me the food for free!

The best thing about the Oaken Bucket is the deck overlooking the river — a great place to grab a few drinks when the weather is nice.
It had actually been awhile since I’ve been to the Bucket, but I met a friend there for drinks and an early Sunday afternoon dinner. The restaurant has gone completely smoke free, which is great (previously only the downstairs family dining area was smoke free).
The restaurant is casual, but inviting with the wooden booths overlooking the deck and river.
Drinks are very reasonably priced — they offer a 10oz draft beer for $ 1 and 20oz for $ 2 every day!
The menu is pretty basic with your standard deep fried appetizers, a decent selection of salads, wraps and sandwiches. I guess you could say they are most known for their burgers which are chargrilled to order (I order medium which usually comes out closer to well done, but still ok). Food is reasonably priced. They also offer a selection of dinner entrees and pizza, but I always stick to a wrap or burger.
This recent visit included a couple of beers, a cheese burger (your choice of cheese, bun and toppings). I opted for cheddar on a wheat bun. Burgers come with chips or you can upgrade to their battered fries, waffle fries, oaken chips or onion rings. I went for the onion rings which were perfectly cooked. My burger, onion rings and beers came to $ 15.
Service is always good — you can tell they have a lot of regulars, but they take care of everyone just the same.

We came here recently to sample burgers during a family visit.
The burgers were solid. The meat patties are substantial but not sickeningly so. To me, I want to be able to taste the burger but completely lose the bun in the texture of the ground beef. I got their standard burger on an onion bun (yum!) with grilled onions and bacon. The onions were cooked to a nice soft texture, which I appreciate. The bun was soft and supple.
The fries, the original ones, were great. They’re batter coated or corn meal coated so they’re crisp but not greasy. We sat on the patio which was nice. Very low key and divey kind of a place. I enjoyed it!