Wild Duck Cafe

Sliders were terrible. Looked like they came out of a box and into the microwave. I’d like to say something about the décor and atmosphere but there was none. Their other locations are great. This one just didn’t do it for me.

It got to the point with the campus location that I decided to never go back. Lousy food, very over priced, and horrible customer service (would not replace white bread with wheat on a lunch special turkey sandwich was the last straw)…
But this place is in the neighbor hood so thought we’d give it a shot.
Different location, same result.
Don’t waste your time or money, there are plenty of other fantastic restaurants near by.

Tried breakfast was not good. Long wait for coffee then served in a irish coffee glass. Jelly is strange and runny. Toast not toasted. I never had been impressed with the other location either. Will not be back.

Service was good. Food was good? Served cold. I assume it would have been delicious if I was to eat it at the intended temperature.

I am giving them 4 stars because our service was good and the food was good. We went to happy hour for the second time and are so happy they are finally offering a happy hour. The beer selection is pretty slim, but we found a couple of nice seasonals to accompany our chicken quesadilla and vietnamese chicken wings. The portions are small but are also inexpensive. By the time we left the restaurant this evening it was full.
There had been a number of bad reviews since the Coburg restaurant opened, but I think they have taken the time to fix tthose problems. I really want this place to succeed as it is within walking distance to our house. The campus restaurant is superb and when we heard they were opening a restaurant near us we were extremely excited. Please come by and give them your support. I do not think you will be disappointed.

This was my second try at the Duck Café. It was not good. About the same as my first try at the Duck Café.
Service is slow. I counted and there were 10 people in the whole place and I had to wait after ordering my first drink order, long enough to look around to see where my server was and why I was waiting, the place is empty. Do I really need to tell you to get the first drink order to the table asap? You are missing a second round with dinner. Get the customer the first drink service asap, rule #1.
And it goes on from there …
From experience don’t order the Bisquick Pizza. It’s served under done with Ragu and a slim sprinkel of cheese. Do not look forward to a cheesy, bubbly, wonderfully crusty pizza. Not going to happen. No way. No how.
Do not look forward to a delux burger on a toasted Kizer bum. Not going to happen. Do not look forward to what one might call «chips» served with a delux burger. You will get fryed to a cardboard like state, slices of pine tree or potato?
Reminds me of a place where everyone is afraid to tell the cook/​owner … this sucks, you can do better.
Staff seemed to have a lot of time to stand around and … do nothing, talk … you can see the kitchen staff and they aren’t doing much other than standing aroung talking. So much time to do nothing you would think the food and service would be …
Oh well, in Eugene, the high is set pretty low so the Duck Café might survive on its name alone.
Wow, «We ate at the Duck!»

Last week my wife and I gave the new Wild Duck another try after a not so great experience shortly after they opened. We really wanted to have a good neighborhood restaurant to replace B. J.‘s, which we enjoyed very much.
Again we were very disappointed. We ordered their signature burger to split. The burger had very little flavor even though it included many extras. The french fries were also not very good. The only saving grace was that the waitress did a nice job and was very helpful.
There was a form that asked for comments that we should have completed but did not. This was probably a mistake.
We will not be going back.

Love this place. I am always impressed with the menu and the employees. There is not very many places to get a great late night meal and the Duck always satisfies. Highly recommend.
(I had Hanne’s Pot Roast, turns out Hanne is the owners mom, freakin sweet.!)

Wild Duck is good. I wish they we were amazing. I hope that when and if the taphouse opens they are better than others in town. Service is just a bit indifferent so far…

Service was slow the two times I’ve been here, but the food was really good!
I’ve tried the steak sandwich, and the truffle burger. Both were delicious. Love the sweet potato tots as well!
I’d give this place 4 stars for the food, but taking away a star for the slower service and the prices, which are on the high side. They also do a lot if up charging, so it can be a pretty spendy meal. Still, worth trying at least once if you are in the area.

Oh, dear.
I’ll start with the good. One star in a green and gold void– Ida, our server. She was was prompt once the hostesses eventually told her that we were seated. Friendly. Respectful. Apologetic. Her recall skills are impressive– no ticket pad, we gave her our order, and she delivered. Made sure the coffee was refilled, and my hot tea was perfect.
Amusing: A place does not HAVE to provide perfectly sharp, brand-​new crayons for kid’s menu art, but handing a child an ashtray-​sized bowl of half-​inch long crayon nubbins that look like ancient cigarette butts in varied shades of white, peach, raw umber, and beige are NOT gonna win over diners under 12. I laughed *hard*.
Accidentally good: The bacon. Crispy and has those lovely little melt-​in-​your-​mouth bits on the end of the strip. I loathe the popular but tough, thick flaccid slabs of bacon I frequently find on my breakfast plate in Eug. So hey, lucked out there.
Alas, everything else was… nightmarish. Chicken-​fried steak for me, WD Eggs Benedict for my husband, and my son ordered the beignets after I sang their praises like a drug dealer. («Oh, you’ll love them– they’re so tasty!»).
Let’s start there, shall we?
Presentation of the beignets? Gorgeous, GINORMOUS and the scent wafting off of them was delish. They were topped with a kid-​friendly mountain of powdered sugar. My son’s eyes bugged out like a lothario in a Tex Avery cartoon. I watched the first bite, expecting his eyes to roll back in «OMGdeep-​friedsugarforbreakfastYAY» ecstasy. He chewed thoughtfully, eyebrows knitted. He went back for bite two. Sad eyes. Confusion.
«Mom? Can you try this? It… tastes…kinda…weird.»
Even with my son’s warning, I’m like Homer Simpson when it comes to doughnuts– so I take a big bite… of sugar-​covered raw and cold beignet dough. I share his shock and confusion as what feels like a chunk of sweet, sub-​par mozzarella bounces around and squeaks against my teeth. Remember the hullabaloo when stuffed crust pizza hit the public? How the reality was that the cheese just sat there like a congealed rope of goddamned awful in a cardboard tube? Yeah, that.
My son comments on the flavor: «This tastes like alcohol smells.»
My husband promises the boy a doughnut on the way home, and I ask my son if he wants to share my breakfast. He agrees.
Chicken-​fried steak: Let me start you (the reader) off with a scenario. Imagine you are less than a stellar chef, but you crave The Best Onion Rings EVAR. You think «I’ll MAKE them!» Now– you don’t have a mandolin slicer, so the «rings» are broken chunks, and the batter is too watery and you forgot to add any seasonings and the oil is too hot so they aren’t done all the way and the batter didn’t bind to the onion so it all falls off onto the serving plate, or blackens in the deep fryer and then you say «fuck this shit»…
Sigh.
Now take that leftover batter, and slap it on a 5“x8″ section of heavy vinyl that you’ve cut from a rain slicker. Deep-​fry it. Slide it onto a plate and plop some (passable, once salt is added) sausage gravy on top. Next to that, arrange a mixture of potato slices which have been thoughtfully overcooked so you don’t have to actually chew them, flanked by mushy onion chunks that resemble those onion rings I mentioned earlier.
My son’s verdict: «I liked the orange.» The garnish, y’see.
The Benedict: «I’m in it for the eggs and Hollandaise… it was a bit more lemony than I am used to.» My husband is the most magnanimous person I know. We traded bites of our breakfast– he thought the CFS was «a bit tough». I had a bite of the Benedict– flavorless, semi-​solid english muffin, a good bite of ham– were it available, I would award a half star for the good pork products. Unfortunately, the ham was topped with wobbly egg and a shrieking Hollandaise that tasted like lemon-​scented nail polish remover was added for a kick. So bitter.
I didn’t try the potato/​onion combination on his plate, which I assumed tasted similar to the grouping on my own plate. He later commented that his were «warm», whereas mine were (in the vernacular of my elder Minnesotan relatives) «butt-​cold».
I had every intention of giving this joint two stars, and maybe giving it another go sometime. Every place has bad days.
Then I read the reviews and saw the percentage of repeated mistakes. Perhaps you ought to lower your oil temp, so the beignets actually cook through. Season the food. Use a cut of beef that won’t turn into a paperback-book-that’s-been-dropped-into-the-bathwater when it goes through the magic that is «chicken-​frying».
Pay attention to *all* the reviews, Wild Duck. The bad ones will tell you where you need to improve. Your staff is friendly enough, and the menu sounds potentially delicious– it’s a damn shame that it isn’t.
MAKE IT BETTER.
–A
P. S. Thank you for comping the $ 5.95 raw-​dough bites that my kid ingested. (sad trombone noise)

We recently relocated from downtown Eugene to the Ferry St. Bridge neighborhood, and we were delighted to learn that Wild Duck Café was going to be taking over the old BJ’s spot just down the street from us, at the corner of Coburg and Willakenzie. We’ve now eaten at the Wild Duck Coburg location a couple of times, and the last time (last night) was so disappointing I decided I would leave a negative review. My hope is that these many negative reviews will be taken seriously and that changes will be made. Otherwise, I don’t see us going back soon.
For starters, as many others have already indicated, the service leaves something to be desired. This is a general complaint I have about restaurants in Eugene – poor service – but it’s certainly a problem at Wild Duck Coburg. The first thing I learned as a waiter at a pizza pub back in North Carolina was to make eye contact with your tables whenever you walked the floor, and to do that consistently and frequently to make sure that your customers’ needs are being spotted early and taken care of. It’s restaurant service 101, and yet it’s amazing how many times in Eugene I’ve sat at a table while waiters either never come by or sail by frequently en route to elsewhere without bothering to notice that you’re trying to catch their eye.
We must have waited 5 to 10 minutes last night before anyone even came to our table to check in with us. I found myself craning my neck around trying to find someone, anyone, who might come to our table and talk to us. The waitress was nice when she came, and she returned with one of our drinks fairly quickly. But then we waited a good while for water, and for what seemed like at least 20 minutes for our food – a mini pizza for my 8 year old, and a salad for me. That’s it, that was our entire order.
The final problem came with the check. After tip, for a salad, a beer, a mini kid’s pizza and a pineapple juice, our dinner came to $ 31. There’s no happy hour at the Coburg location, so my beer at 5:45pm cost $ 5. We were dinged $ 2 for a few pepperoni slices added to my son’s mini pizza (the same charge that is applied for having a meat topping added to their largest pizza), making his option from the kid’s menu $ 8, actually $ 10 if you include the juice. So 10 bucks for 8 year old’s dinner. My cranberry chicken salad was at very best a medium sized salad, and yet it cost $ 12. So my meager salad + beer was $ 17. It’s ridiculous. We make a concerted effort to support local restaurants, but bad service plus high prices is insulting. Seriously, can’t Eugene do better than this?

My friends and I used to go to BJ’s (in this location) every week after rehearsals. We LOVED it. BJ’s service was fantastic… especially the woman who always waited on us. BJ’s food was great and got to us quickly, even though the place was always packed with patrons. BJ’s prices were great. Sadly, BJs moved to VRC, so we tried The Wild Duck.
Suffice to say, none of us want to go back. There was NO ONE in there (I think two tables were filled) and it took FOREVER to be served by waiters who could have cared less that we were there. It took a long while to get menus; I asked for water twice and then gave up; and it took over 20 minutes to get a side order of fries. The wine was overpriced. It makes us mourn for BJs… or somewhere else nearby that is nice and who actually wants to have customers and knows how to treat them.

Some of slowest service I have ever experienced. I’ve been there four times and each time I’ve been there the food has been great, but the wait time was just unnecessarily dumb. It was really slow too. Maybe three other tables. So I was confused this last time when I was with my grandma as to why our meals were taking so long. The waitress (very polite and smiley) informed me that we may not see her for a while because the we’re having a business meeting. I thought that was absurd to have a meeting during pond lunch time while taking/​serving tables.
Anyways…the food is pretty good when you finally get it.

The WORST huevos rancheros I have ever had. Instead of salsa, they had a big blob of spaghetti sauce in top. The tortillas were stiff, stale? and inedible. Others in my party enjoyed the turkey sandwich and salad.
I wouldn’t recommend this place when there are so many tasty restaurants in Eugene and Springfield

First of all, the nachos here are not in fact nachos but chips with dip. Second of all, the first time we visited it smelled like a homeless man had rolled around in his own feces and was sleeping under our table. The second time I went it was okay, but they need to strip the place, get rid of those gross carpets that retain the smell, and modernize the place.
And also the breakfast was bad. Not like: it wasn’t good, but it was ‘weird bad’. How could a professional chef produce this, with the same ingredients used at the other Wild Duck? They need to take lessons at Buddy’s. Or from their other restaurant.
Service is good, waitress was attentive, just the food is stupid. Chicken fried steak should be cube steak, tender and soft. This tasted like really tough steak, breaded with soggy corn flakes.
Why is this place so wrong when your other Wild Duck is so right? They’ll definitely get more stars from me once they hire a competent chef.

Edit: Please also read the owner’s comment below my review. I agree with what he said. Hopefully they’ll get things under control very soon, because we love the Wild Duck!
It pains me to lower my review, because I want so badly for Wild Duck to do well in this location (which is probably why I keep eating there). This is such a convenient location for them, I was thrilled for them to move into the Coburg neighborhood. But the results have been disappointing, and I think both a visit and the other reviews here on Unilocal will make it very clear why:
Pros:
— Same menu, which is awesome
— Convenient location with plenty of free parking
— Comfy booths
— Friendly service
— Sausage gravy is homemade with lots of sausage, really nice
— Sweet potato tots are like amazing tiny casseroles
— Pasta with Oregonzola is super rich and creamy without being overpowering. Lots of chicken.
— Great nachos, especially with steak.
Cons:
First of all the service seems to be a problem for most people. The first time we came, on opening night, they were overstaffed and service was spectacular. The other times when we came back, service was good. Not amazing, but not slow, though we come at quiet times (11am, 3pm). It’s clear though from other reviews and from friends I’ve talked to that service during busy hours is way, WAY too slow.
And then the MAJOR problem: Execution.
The menu is the same as on campus, the ingredients are the same, the recipes are the same. So what has changed? Execution, and it’s terrible. Forgotten orders/​ingredients for one, and worse: Food that arrives cold. Has the Wild Duck not noticed how many people are complaining about cold food? I don’t get it. We’ve experienced the same problems. And then there’s the undercooked/​overcooked food. A few specifics:
— Sweet potato tots: They’re absolutely, amazingly delicious, but half were cold, and half were piping hot. Why on earth would you mix batches for people? My mother in law was worried you were passing on cold tater tots from other tables, though I hope that’s not true. there is simply no excuse for putting cold tots that were fried much earlier in with a basket of hot, fresh ones.
— Chicken fried steak: Nice, real beef flavor, it was definitely more steak-​like than in your average diner. But it was terribly tough. Perhaps they’re not using the right cut of meat, or they’re not tenderizing it enough, or overfrying it? I could barely cut off a piece, and my husband said it was the most disappointing one he’s ever eaten. Not disgusting or anything, just disappointing. The gravy looked really nice though, homemade with real sausage.
— Steel cut Irish oats: A watery, flavorless mess. Gross. Like something you’d see as Denny’s. The waitress asked if I’d like milk with it, which I assumed might mean they’d make it with milk. Instead milk was served on the side. Okay, fine, but you need to serve drier oats then, with more texture. I’m not going to pour milk into a watery mess that is already spilling over the edges of my bowl before I’ve even added the sugar, raisins and nuts.
— Beignets: I really like these sugary, yeasty beignets, but they were a little undercooked in the center. I’m all for doughy stuff, but the dough was close to raw in the middle.
So Wild Duck, please, please fix these problems. Your Unilocal reviews are very clear about what the issues are and we all love your campus location. We really don’t want to see this location go under. Fire your cooks at this location, and send at least one over from the campus location to run the kitchen here.

I really wanted to be impressed — really. Unfortunately we had calamari that was too salty to eat and nowhere near crisply. I paid $ 11.95 for a ‘large salad’ that came on a dinner plate (no protein even). The kids sliders were so over-​cooked they should have been called jerky burgers. Our water glasses were mostly empty and they tried to deliver our food to the wrong table twice. Now our dirty plates sit waiting to be cleared and my credit card sits on the table as we try to get out and make it to a football game that started 10 minutes ago.
Unfortunately I’ve got another place in Eugene I don’t need to get back to.

Let me set the expectation of this review by saying this is a 1 star experience from a 5 star establishment.
We’ve visited Wild Duck on campus numerous times. We absolutely love it down there. Service has always been spot on, food has been amazing every time, you get the picture.
Last night we were on Coburg and my wife pointed out that the new Wild Duck was open and just up the road. I was game! That Bluegene Burger was calling my name. It was convenient not having to head back to campus too!
Everything started off just fine, we were seated, and our drinks were served. The wait for the food was about 40 minutes. They were kind enough to serve the party that came in 10 minutes after us though. That was nice of them.
Right when I was ready to pay for our drinks and leave our food showed up nice and piping cold, well my wife’s food was piping cold. Mine was warm and my daughters pizza was hot… what a shit show.
Thankful that we had our food we started to dig in. My fries were barely warm, the Cajun spice was warmer than the fries themselves. My wife said, «My sweet potato tots are cold!» So of course I check it out thinking they’re just warm like mine are. She wasn’t kidding. Those lil bastards were colder than a well diggers ass! Don’t ask how I know that. I just do.
I got halfway through my burger and thought, where’s the blue cheese!!! None. DAMN IT RICHARD!!! As I was inspecting my food, I was SO delighted to find a hair as well. OK! That did it! I was officially pushed to my limit. I was genuinely pissed mind you. My wife couldn’t even finish her sandwich because the toasted bread was more like a toasted brick with a layer of SOS pads. Yeah, brick hard and rough as hell.
Once we flagged down our waitress, she was apologetic (our waitress was very nice to be honest). She hunted down a manager and they said they would be happy to provide a 50% discount. *crickets*
Seriously? 50%? You can kiss my ass for free!
I’m sure all the bugs will be worked out eventually, but to be slapped in the face with a 50% discount… that’s some bullshit right there.
Lastly, do something about the décor in this place. BLUH! I’m a duck fan, but this place doesn’t touch what’s going on downtown.

Wild Duck Café was a pleasant experience for the family. The staff was friendly and welcoming and the tables were nicely spread out to give a feeling of privacy.
The food was good and came quickly. The Sweet Potato Tots were a great starter. Piping hot with two dipping sauces. The Soup of the Day was a Turkey & Spinach that was hearty and fresh. The Salmon & Caper with Alfredo pizza was excellent. Finally, the burgers were nicely done and the beef was full of flavor.
We would happily recommend the Wild Duck to friends and head back when we come this way again!