Moose Creek Steakhouse

I used to frequent this place heavily from 2004 — 2009, and loved it. The food was really good, and the service was top notch. They had a awesome line up of bar tenders, who really knew how to take care of the customers. My favorite thing about this restaurant was that the drinks coming from the bar were not only good, but good and strong. Depending on what you ordered it didn’t take much to get the edge knocked off from a hard days work, and if you love music like I love music then the Jukebox in the rear of the restaurant was a true game changer.
I started coming here just to wait on some friends that worked at the ikea next door, but after a few visits I was hooked. There was a bunch of regulars that came in throughout the week that really brought this place to life, and if you came into the place enough times for people to recognize your face you instantly became apart of the crew. It was literally the closest thing that I have ever seen to cheers. Just a bunch of guys coming to have a drink and chill after a day of work, and probably dealing with other peoples B/​S.
However as the saying goes «All good things come to an end». I ended up moving out of this area, and my visits became fewer and further between, but on my last few visits it just wasn’t the same. The people were different, I saw a few of the same regulars when I stopped by, but the food, drinks and service had fallen off big time. I not sure if they came under new management, but things had definitely changed and not for the better. I have since given up on this restaurant, and I will probably be a long time before I consider coming back.

The only good thing about this place is the service. The place is old, dirty, run down. After walking pass a large group of smokers hang out by the entrance we entered a time warp! For a Saturday night the place had only three people at the bar and one party eating dinner. Our server worked hard to take care of our large party. She was a sweet heart. The food was cold, took a very long time and was in need of something to make it taste somewhat good. I would not go to this place unless the end of the world was coming!!! PHOTOS are OUTDATED!!!

The Moose Creek Steakhouse is in the College Park Holiday Inn, making it, literally, the hotel restaurant. That alone speaks volumes. When was the last time you had a good meal at the hotel restaurant? I visit the area often for work and always stay at this hotel. The food is bland. The décor is dated, worn, and dirty. The service is occasionally friendly, but usually just quiet and uninterested. If it weren’t the only restaurant for breakfast within walking distance, I would never eat there.
The hotel should gut the restaurant to the studs and rebuild.

Ended up here for breakfast by chance… The menu looked average so I checked out the buffet. It’s worth coming back for — quite a spread. This morning, they had creamed chipped beef and biscuits, sausage and bacon, homemade fried potatoes, plain scrambled eggs and with cheese peppers and onions… Half a dozen kinds of fresh prepared fruit, custom omelettes, waffles, yogurt and cereals… Service is very diligent and the management is hands-​on. All for $ 11.50!

Not completely horrible, but unless you’re staying at the Holiday Inn hotel that it’s inside of, there’s no reason to eat here. The buffet seems to only be open when the hotel is full. Bar has reasonably strong drinks after a long day. Food is bland.

Very tired. Salty seafood dip. The ambiance is circa 1987. Wouldn’t come back. The service is… well the jury is still out. I’m in the middle of dinner now so will check back. So far… not coming back.

My wife and I wanted to celebrate my graduation from the University of Maryland this past Sunday 5÷17÷15. We chose this place because it met all of the marks: minutes from UMD, central location easy to find, very good food, pleasant décor, good service and a quiet secluded dining room to rent (Adirondack Room).
Milton the manager was terrific, bending over backwards to help make my stressful day a fun one for all of my guests.
Milton said «I want your party to go so well that you will want to recommend us to your friends and family». Isn’t that what you want to hear? I am a fan!
Richard M.

My review is only for the customer service because, (un)fortunately, I never got a chance to taste the food. My husband and I entered the restaurant on a Wednesday afternoon around 4 o’clock. It was essentially deserted. There’s no one to greet and I’m not sure if it’s seat yourself. We walked around the restaurant and its dirty pool tables. Despite making eye contact with the 2 bartenders there, STILL no one greeted us, said «hello» or anything. We turned around and left. The place also smells like a nursing home. I can’t imagine the food would be any good.

I tried this place twice hoping for a better result the second time around. Not only was it bad it was terrible. My girlfriend ordered a blackened salmon, which was blackened but it tasted like a burnt salmon croquette. I ordered the prime beef and it was all you eat, now I know why, it was absolutely bland and forgettable. Because it attached to the Holiday Inn, I expected better. Shame on me for trying them twice.

Omg this place is terrible everyone is so fake food is bad everything is overpriced… the bartender was trying to get me to go online and give a good review even wrote down the web address and everything. Even the service was terrible. The gm of the hotel is a pig I heard the way he was talking to his staff… disgusting. This place needs a house cleaning fire everyone and start over new staff new management. And definitely new cooks it was really a waste of time and money, just pathetic…

This could be a Holiday Inn anywhere in U.S. and if you want that «I might as well be in the Midwest» feeling, this is where to go. We sat in the bar and got a light beer and a fairly decent Cosmopolitan along with some bar food — fried Southwestern wontons. Servers were friendly and helpful and clearly make the place worthwhile. We were waiting for someone who was attending a conference and the Moose Creek steakhouse is the bar and restaurant for this Holiday Inn. What is truly weird is oddlyl designed passageway with two sets of steps that you’d take from the Holiday Inn lobby to the Moose Creek steakhouse — so a wheelchair user would have to go outside the Holiday Inn to go in the front door of the restaurant instead of using the interior corridor. Bathrooms accessible!

Chillin’ at the Holiday Inn.
We decided to try this place based on a coupon sent to us. I guess they were trying to get locals to try it instead of just the out-​of-​towners in the Holiday Inn.
The food is pricey for what it is. We both had steak, which was fine, but the accompanying salad was nothing more than greens and 3 grape tomatoes. The broccoli was undercooked and the pile of mashed potatoes seemed like filler. All this for $ 24 each.
Without the coupon, we would have spent over $ 60 for a mediocre steak. I doubt we will be returning there. You could get a better meal for much cheaper at the IKEA cafeteria.

The bar (at night) was fine. Decent selection, closed at 11 pm, but didn’t rush us out.
Breakfast was not so great. Since it was free (for us) I didn’t mind too much, but I decided to skip it one morning. The buffet was underwhelming, so I ordered off the menu. The first day I got stuffed French toast. The whipped cream was half frozen and half melted. It took forever to get it.
The second time I came for breakfast I wasn’t even given a menu and when I asked for it the waitress verified, with the manager, that I could have it. I guess they only do the buffet when they are busy. I ordered an omelette and it was better than the buffet and came out quicker than the French toast had.
If I wasn’t here as part of a conference, I would have gotten breakfast next door at IKEA instead.

We had an event in the Adirondack room. Pros — the room was perfect (lots of wood, antlers on the wall, a beautiful faux fireplace, lots of privacy), pool tables and juke box available, pretty good food in large quantity (underwhelming, but pub style), and they let us put up decorations.
Cons. well, Untrustworthy, inconvenient, and generally all wrong.
1) I didn’t feel confident that I could trust the catering manager. She quoted me several different prices for drinks (the menu said beer was $ 4.75 for a draft, but she said they raised the price to $ 6.25, then showed me the catering menu which said $ 4.25… whaa??) Everything felt like a used car sale — she kept having to go ask her manager, but wouldn’t let me talk to the person. She also didn’t answer any of my questions easily. Either she misinterpreted them, ignored them (email) or mixed up the answer. There was no language barrier. Why did I continue? Guess I fell in love with the room and figured the rest would work itself out. I was wrong.
2) It was really inconvenient to set up the event. It was a long, drawn out process because she didn’t respond to email or phone calls quickly (like, a week in between), and was rarely available when I was because she has inconsistent hours. Then, I had to go in person to sign the contract (which ended up taking 3 HOURS). though, later, when I was coaxed into increasing my order (more later), they easily scanned and accepted a faxed credit card authorization.
3) The event was all wrong. I made a big deal about the jukebox and pool tables and «manly» environment for my husband’s 30^th. but when I showed up, they had roses and candles on the tables and were playing muzak (WHAT!!!) They said the only choice of music was muzak and the juke only had speakers on the machine itself (WHA_​WHAT?!?) and, though my guests had already complained about the jukebox not working (we came in late for the surprise party and), they did nothing to fix it until I raised a raucous (it turned out they had to reboot it, then it would only take $ 1 bills, not quarters or credit cards as it should have). At my behest, they turned off the muzak and turned the jukebox up (which obviously annoyed the bartender, more later).
5) They got me to buy 50% more food, then they wouldn’t let me pack up the (massive) extras. On the day before the event, I received a bunch more RSVPs, and called to make sure we had enough food. Because the total guests were still the original planned number, I expected them to just say Yes and allay my concerns. Instead, I was (by another catering manager, as my contact was not available, see #2) that I only had ½ enough food for the number of guests! I increased my order by 50% and included a «refillable» item to cover it. BUT, by the end of the night, we had a TON of food left! 25% of the scallops, chicken tenders and beef, 75% of the deli tray, 70% of the dips. At first, I was frustrated, but glad we had enough food, and just wanted folks to take the left overs. But then they brought out my contract, highlighted (which they hadn’t pointed out before), and said I wasn’t allowed to take any of the food! I would have been better off just letting my guests order whatever they wanted off the regular menu so they could have taken their own doggy bags, and the price wouldn’t have been much different!
6) The bartender was … unpleasant. This would be normal Maryland customer service, but it was another nail in the coffin on the evening because I kept having to deal with her sneer and holier-​than-​thou attitude.

My husband and I planned a weekend away so we went to college park md. Our main reason was to visit Ikea. Checked this place out on Unilocal and decided to eat here. Very deserted as far as customers. Our food was awesome! We both had the cowboy steaks. My husband said it was the best steak he had out in a long time. It was seasoned perfectly and cooked to our liking. Mine m. Rare and his m. Well. I also ordered crab legs. Rolls were hot and homemade. The salad was fresh! The waitress we had was very personable. She was from west Africa. She did a great job! We still can’t figure out why this place isn’t booming! Please help them out and go have an outstanding meal. This was the highlight of our trip.

I had a breakfast buffet here when I was staying at the Holiday Inn. Buffet was very standard with all regular breakfast items included. I was pleasantly surprised to see mangoes in their fruit bar. Service was great and the ambience was nice.

Terrible!!! Everything was terrible! Raw chicken, old stale French fries, macaroni was dry and tasted old. I never write reviews but this time I had to. We couldn’t finish our food it was so bad. However, the beer was good and the service was great but the food was very disappointing.

A bit hard to find, as it is in the Holiday Inn between the Beltway and IKEA. The décor is old school — a room with a full bar and pool tables, a party room off it, a dining room with dark wood and plushy booths, and a buffet room. The salad bar is compact but has a good selection, and Ken’s dressings in the bottles. Having been a consultant, I approve of that — it says «this is not our area of expertise, so we outsourced and got you the good stuff.» Sandwiches, burgers, and salads are available, but I come here for the grilled steaks and fish, always cooked just right, and the buffets. Tuesday, ribs. Thursday, carved to order prime rib. Friday, seafood featuring top notch crab legs. The wine list is one page, with user friendly descriptions. All drinkable, nothing special. My one negative is that service is often leisurely. That seems to be common to hotel dining rooms — perhaps they figure you have nothing else to do before heading down the hall to sleep. Still, it fills a niche for decent moderately priced food or a quiet tête-​à-​tête.

Bad bad bad food. Nice bartender but they could have used more help. Everything was very slow, on a Saturday afternoon. They even overcooked chicken tenders… that’s a pretty hard item to screw up! STAY AWAY!

I wanted to go to Buffalo Wild Wings but they were packed to the point where people were waiting outside. I saw this place across the street… I wish I had a time machine to correct this mistake.
As we walked into the restaurant there was a creepy silence about the place. I don’t like extremely noisy places but a little background noise is never a bad thing. It felt like everyone in the restaurant could clearly hear everything I was saying.
The hostess saw us and said she would be with us in «just a second». She sat there on the computer doing god knows what and didn’t even bother to have us sat until a waiter walked by. She literally reached out to grab him and got him to do her job.
When the waiter got to us we ordered water, a Sprite, and a beer. It took over 10 minutes to get us the drinks, and while waiting, a waitress came up and tried to be our server. When I politely informed the waitress that we were already being helped, she got pissed and said, «well this was my table» and stormed away. I get it, it’s your table and you’re pissed… don’t take that out on me! I did not walk in, pick your table, and then tell the waiter to hurry up and serve me so I can screw her out of a table. That was just plain and simple rude, no other way to explain it.
For an appetizer we ordered the spinach and artichoke dip. It wasn’t horrible but I have had much better (example: Applebees). For dinner my girlfriend ordered the ribs and I got the new york strip. Once the food arrived I immediately noticed the ribs. They looked like soggy dog food. It looked/​smelled VERY unappetizing. Since I don’t have a weak stomach and can eat just about anything that had a pulse, I switched dinners with her. The Steak looked awesome and was actually not that bad. I ordered it medium rare and it came out medium but my girlfriend likes medium so it worked out. They have two kinds of their own steak sauce and are the only two things I can say I truly liked about the place. Once is a mesquite barbecue sauce and the other was a Vidalia (sp?) onion steak sauce (that was my favorite).
When I got finally got the check, had to ask for it twice by the way, it took what seemed forever to get my change back. There is nothing worse than being done with a bad restaurant experience and then having to wait an extra 10 to 15 minutes, without seeing anyone, for your check.
In conclusion, stay far, far, far away from this place. I could have waited for a table at Buffalo Wild Wings, eaten my food, and gotten out of there faster than going to this place. Also, for what they give you, extremely overpriced. SERIOUSLY DO NOT GO!!! That is unless you are looking for a horrible dinning experience, then you should definitely go.
Is it possible to be refunded my money AND time?