The Bistro

I love the bistro. I used to live in Plaza Apartments just next door so I was a frequent guest. I’ve never been disappointed with anything I ordered on the menu and the food is always ready in a timely manner.
Customer service is great as well, friendly and accommodating.
They do takeout with great little side dishes, will definitely be back.

The bartender didnt know how to make long island iced teas so she claimed I was too inebriated to be served and cut us off. Keep in mind, there were zero customers in the whole place and we were stone sober. I believe they confused our brash Jersey Charm with drunkeness as uneducated country-​folk tend to do. I have a suite at the Marriot, and travel quite frequently and have never been treated with such hostility by a bar staff. I will never return to this hotel or the awful bar attached to it. The city of Grand Rapids is worse off for having a place that employes such unprofessional lowlives. Take your money elsewhere, theres a reason this place is empty.

I must have eaten here 4 – 5 times on my trip to Grand Rapids. The food is good and they have limited but nice options. The service was good EXCEPT… During the day you had to go to the counter to get your menus and order. At night it was a normal sit down restaurant so I really don’t understand. They had enough staff during the day and they still came out to serve and refill drinks. Weird.
Otherwise excellent :)

I tried their entry in the grand rapids GrandWich contest and it was a really fatty pastrami sandwich that was leaking grease from the minute I got it. I was thinking at first that with all the grease it should at least has some taste, but the meat was tasteless, the only thing that gave it flavor was the pretzel bun and the little dab of spicy mustard in the top center of the sandwich.
I’m really disappointed because this was their entry in a sandwich contest and I think they should have blew me away with that, so I am really scared to think what the normal food is like.
I believe this was an $ 11.00 sandwich, so it was not any type of discount, which makes me even more upset that it was so flavorless.
we did politely mention it to the wait staff, but their response was that different people like different things, and this sandwich must not be right for us. (correct, it was flavorless and not for me — the hamburgers from TGIF next door have more flavor)
I was not trying to get anything for free, they asked us what we thought of the sandwich and we were polite but honest with them. I am glad they did not give us a discount because I would still have wanted to write an honest review.
I think the food should get a 1 star, but I bumped it to 2 stars because I think the staff were really nice and very attentive, even though not sympathetic about the tasteless food.

The Bistro was inside of the Courtyard Marriott hotel. They open at 6:30am on the weekdays and was a place for anybody staying at the hotel to grab a bite without leaving the hotel.
I ate breakfast here and it was one if those places where you order and pay for your order first before the food came out. I can’t remember what I ordered, but it was just okay. It tasted alright but the price was probably not worth it. The Starbucks here was good to start off my workday so that was a plus side to this place.
I went here one evening to have a couple drinks with my coworkers. The bartender was nice to all of us. There were other hotel guests at the bar as well.
Overall, this place got the job done.

Great pizza, wonderful service and great atmosphere. Make sure you make reservations on the weekends.

Great little hotel bar/​restaurant. Very nice bartenders. Good selection of local micro brews. The décor is very hip and modern. Food is good too. Happy hour prices are legit!

**3.5 stars**
The Bistro is a restaurant/​bar located in the Courtyard Grand Rapids Downtown.
It’s American cuisine and you can get breakfast here. They also have a coffee bar — serving Starbucks coffee. I made a beeline for the coffee once checked in. I also got a medium coffee the next day and hung and worked for a couple of hours before heading back to the Airport. You can find electrical outlets here and there to plug into for your Notebook computer and mobile devices.
In the evening, the Bistro is also a Bar, so you can hang out, pound a few cocktails, and watch TV. I sampled an order of their Nachos, along with a Pint of Founders Pale Ale. I ordered the Nachos with Jalapeños, Red Onions, Black Olives, Gaucamole and Sour Cream. When the Nachos came out, there were no Black Olives, instead your traditional Green cocktail Olives stuffed with Pimento had been sliced and liberally applied to the Nachos. Bleck! Green Olives don’t really go with Nachos! I proceeded to pick them all out. The Nachos were rather ordinary.
Service was good.