Rising Sun Bistro

Rising Sun has good food, nice staff, service could be faster

We attended a dinner here for a fundraiser for the high school French club. It cost $ 75 for a couple which is a lot but we wanted to support the our High School student and got a few family members to buy tickets also. Some of the food was really good – it was a special menu with limited choices for the fundraiser. The quiche was excellent. The cheescake was still frozen and tasted like something from the frozen food section of the grocery store. The salmon was very dry. The part that left me with a bad taste in my mouth was that we were served by volunteer high school waitstaff (which was not good and is understandable since they were inexperienced volunteer staff) but the owner brought us our check at the end and had tacked on an extra 20% in gratuity. First, since it was a fundraiser I don’t think we should have been required to add a gratuity and second, 20% is a very high gratuity to pay – most places that add gratuity add only 15−18% and they inform you first. Who got the gratuity? Is this how the restaurant made up for donating to the fundraiser? We still don’t know how much money was given to the high school students and how much the restaurant donated but I felt like the food was just ok and the gratuity should not have been added without telling us.
I was also a little disappointed that it didn’t look much different or nicer since the update. I always loved it when it was The Knead and didn’t feel like there was any improvement in the décor.

My daughter and I had lunch here today. We arrived at around 1:15, and the hostess acted as though she were doing us a favor by seating us. She mumbled something about drinks then walked away, leaving two tattered menus and a wine list. We decided to eat on the patio, since there was a large table inside and it was a bit noisy. Aside from the large table, the place was relatively empty, but it took our server about ten minutes to arrive. She apologized for the wait, said she was the only server, and took our order. Very shortly afterward, some friends of mine were seated across the patio; they got the same lackluster service from the hostess.
My daughter got the chicken salad sandwich on croissant, and the fruit for the side. The croissant was obviously heated in the microwave, because it was tough and chewy. The chicken salad was bland and lacked seasoning, aside from the dill, which overpowered everything. I got the veggie burger with brie and roasted beet salad. Burger tasted of curry but nothing else. The best part of my meal was the roasted beet salad. Meanwhile, my friends had ordered their food, had two glasses of wine, and when we left they still hadn’t received their food.
I expected much better. Lack of staffing, lack of a warm and welcoming greeting, and so-​so food will prevent me from returning. It’s a beautiful little place, but ambience doesn’t please the palate.

On June 29, 2013 another couple, with my husband and I visited for brunch. I had the special of the day sandwich. It was a chicken with peanut sauce slaw!!! Yum. Yum!

I would like to give them 3.½ stars, but it is not possible.
I ate here last year with friends and the food was pretty good, but the piches on theastry on the quiche was not cooked correctly, plus I ordered a vegetarian quiche. When I bit in to it it was bacon and something. Not fun for a Jewish Vegetarian. They only had two quiches on the menu. That was a little off putting, but I do not make a fuss when out with friends.
Today I decided to give it another try for lunch. I ordered Argula and tomato quiche with a green salad and pesto dressing on the side and a cup of green tea.
Good Points:
1. The tea came with a cup full of hot water and a teapot full of hot water thereby enabling you to have two full cups of tea, nice touch.
2. Not much you can do to green salad. The dressing did not taste anything like a Pesto, but nevertheless it was excellent.
3. The quiche was very tasty.
Bad Points:
The tomato in the quiche needed to be cooked more. Raw or rawish tomatoes do not work in a quiche. The pastry was not good, soggy, either because it was not cooked enough or they microwaved the quiche for too long. This was a problem the last time and I have seen other comments onn the pastry reflecting the same problem.
Stars for the waitress would be FIVE
She was professional, courteous, and not intrusive. She did not keep running up to my table every few minutes asking me if everything was okay whilst I have a mouth full of food.
Would I go there again?, YES, but I would like to see them do something about the pastry.
I did not have to wait long for my food, but only 4 tables were occupied and that was approximately 12.15 pm.

This place is getting closer, but it’s not there yet. I’ve only eaten there twice since the make-​over, but I think the prices are too high for the way the food is prepared. While the menu sounds great, the temperature, portion size, and flavor of the meals are all less than stellar. Add that to the wait staff being less than attentive — It’s not what I’d hoped it would be by now.
The location is very good, the décor and ambiance are welcoming, and if you’re with someone you like hanging out with and just visiting for a while waiting for service, it’s fine.

My husband and I went for lunch at the Rising Sun Bistro. It was our first time and our last. It was utterly disappointing and down right upsetting. I have many years in the restaurant field and know a thing or two with how a proper restaurant should run, this one should close its doors.
The service was at a snail’s pace for only having 5 tables. We sat and waited for 12 minutes before we ordered our drinks which took another 10 minutes, totaling so far, over 20 minutes before we had drinks. I ordered a French Press and he, a coke. What they brought us 10 minutes later was a large French Press, which was nice and a coke can with a glass of ice. The French press cost $ 4.00, the Coke can, $ 2.00-a total rip off.
For the order, I ordered the Quiche Lorraine with fruit. My husband ordered a burger with fries. We waited over another 25 minutes after we ordered our food. Between the wait for our drinks, over 20 minutes and over 25 minutes for our food, we had been there an hour when we got our food.
When our order did come, there was no reason for the long delay. How could there be with 5 tables (2 at each, 3 at one-​11 people in the restaurant)?? The busser/​host boy did bring four slices of french bread with olive oil & pesto with butter as we waited for our meal. Big Wow.
Finally, our food arrived and instead of what I envisioned the quiche to be, a big and fluffy quiche with delicious flaky crust, was flat and greasy and don’t know where the crust went. The quiche was maybe an inch thick, if that. When I stuck my fork into it, greasy oil pooled around my fork-​YUCK! The flavor was what you expect from a greasy quiche. The fruit was layered slices of cantaloupe, oranges and a small group of red grapes. The icing on the cake for my experience dining at the Rising Sun Bistro, was under the cantaloupe slice was a old, shriveled up orange slice. It looked like it sat in the sun for a few days. What made me so upset was the fact the chef had to carefully lay these slices of fruit and knew damn well about the shriveled orange slice!
That when I stopped eating and requested the check. The waitress, Sue, was pleasant but again, took almost 10 minutes getting our bill to us. Outrageous!
I advise anyone against wasting your time and money with this restaurant.

None of the food was cooked improperly nor was the place unclean; but we overpaid for poor service and flavorless food. My husband says that the salmon had no seasoning and the salad which included a cold potato had no flavor to it. There may have been some super light oil on the greens but on nothing else. The tomatoes were clearly hot house tomatoes. It was like eating a diet plate. My chicken salad sandwich was bland I think the sourdough bread I was given was really wonder bread. The beets were good but nothing to write home about. Both of us have spend over a combine decade in Europe so we have experienced good French food. All of the items were very pretty to look at but you could not smell or taste anything. The staff stated that they must be seasoning the food less because they are catering to Montana tastes. I think this is the ultimate in insults to Montanans. We should have known better as it was Saturday at lunch time and we were one of only two tables in the place.

For being a restaurant that was featured on Restaurant: Impossible (A Food Network show), the interior décor was somewhat odd. They went for a French feel and did well with that goal. However, the structure of the décor was random, having a certain color paint here and another here with decorative pieces which were inconsistent around the bistro. However, décor isn’t that big of a deal to me usually, but the chairs and benches were. They were very hard and uncomfortable. My grandmother who came with us had a very hard time sitting down for a meal here.
The service was at par and I was happy with their promptness and kind attitudes, even if a few were not dressed appropriately for the job.
The menu was small, but had a variety of choices. I wished it was a bit bigger because I only saw 1 or 2 items on there I thought I would enjoy. I chose the red pepper and pesto sandwich which was very good as were the beets I chose as a side. The others in my party got the french dip which was loaded with meat and was very tasty and the catfish which was ok, although I am not positive it was actually catfish. The serving sizes were big which is different then many bistro style restaurants.
The bill was about $ 45 for 4 people which is not bad at all, that is without alcohol however. Overall I wouldn’t mind returning and trying something else at a different mealtime, although I will ask for a cushioned seat.

My wife had the Tomato Basil Soup, which was sour and tasted like it came from a can.
I had the Chicken & Tomato Crêpe, which tasted bland and was served luke warm.
The server asked if my wife did not like the soup, but did not ask what my wife did not like about the soup in order to make correction in the kitchen. Server did take soup off of our bill, however.

We had dinner at this place. The seafood pasta was delicious, and they had no trouble substituting the cream sauce for tomato for me. The baked cod was ok. Although the salad was so garlicky you could smell it on our breath for a full day!
We would go again.

The management has made some needed changes to this place. The food was great and the staff was friendly attentive. I would recommend eating here to any of my friends.

The service is exactly the same, very in attentive and slow. :-(Don’t let the lure of the old location make you hungry… our past experience was not so good! They kept the same brunch menu. We ordered the Benedict special with feta and olives. My eggs were cold. The bread under the eggs was cold :-(it just wasn’t awesome like I remember, when they were in WF. Honestly, I think the chef isn’t able to keep up anymore. Maybe the location they moved to is just too many tables for the chef to keep up with. It’s sad because the food was so good in WF. They may have just filmed for the show Restaurant Impossible, but nothing much has changed except the paint. Unless things change, I’m afraid people will stop going. Which makes me really sad for the owners.

Love the staff here and the food is great too (fabulous desserts). Menu choices could be better but everything I have ever ordered here has always been fantastic.

AVOID!!! I came here for lunch on 05/​15/​2012 at 12:45 and it was not overly busy. The menu looked really good and I was looking forward to ordering something light. I has just driven 2 hours from Missoula and had a 45 minutes to eat before having to attend a business meeting. I was promptly seated on the outside patio and that is where the negative experience began. I would describe the waitress as taking a «dive bomber «approach. She would come to the table, state something and then immediately turn her back before I even had an opportunity to state something. I will once again point out that the restaurant was not full. From the times she took my order until the time I received a small plate of bread, 15 minutes had passed. She briefly dive bombed my table at 25 minutes in stating that my salad would not be much longer. She left the table before I could even state that I was growing concerned over the time. At 30 minutes in from the time that I was seated, I heard the waitress profusely apologizing to another table for being out of an order. She then dive bombed another table near me and apologized again for being out of another item and when two new patrons were seated, the waitress mentioned 4 menu items that were no longer available. I tried getting her attention, but she did not display a shred of situational awareness. At exactly 42 minutes after I was seated (leaving me only 3 minutes to get to my appointment) I got up in frustration and went to the front of the restaurant to pay for my ice water and two pieces of bread. I was not happy at all and was not charged for the bread, but I went into 3 hour meeting not having really eaten. I thought for sure that by ordering a salad, I would be able to finish a lunch meal well within a 45 minute period.
The menu did look good, but the execution of the orders and the performance of the staff make this an absolute no go. I will never return and hope that my post can help some other hungry patron avoid this restaurant.

Won’t go back and after 2 not so good visits and 1 absolutely horrible visit I can’t recommend you do either. Unless you are okay waiting an hour or more to get your food and you don’t mind sub-​par food at a premium price. Do yourself a favor and make another choice.
Maybe it is the physical building. I assume the horrible service that prompted my review of the last restaurant to occupy this building was a one time thing. Since they went out of business not long after my review it may have been more the rule than the exception. I never visited the Rising Sun Bistro in it’s Previous Whitefish location, so I cant say if the service and food quality were any better. I can say that I will not again visit them in the current location either.
This was our third visit. I have to admit the first visit left a good taste. Despite portions that did not match the prices I did not leave hungry, the food was tasty and well prepared, not exceptional and perhaps not up to the prices, bit worthy of a second try. I do not remember the food taking an exceptionally long time but the service was not great. We attributed this to early opening jitters and decided to try again.
The second visit the food was very good and more in keeping wit h the price, The table service was also a little better but our food took a very long time (45 minutes) to get to us. Strike two, we should have learned.
So Why go back after that? It was Mothers day and my wife mentioned this place when I asked where she might want to have breakfast. We both discussed how slow it had been but figured since we were not in a hurry and since breakfast choices are limited in the area we would give the Rising Sun Bistro one more try. Sorry we did.
It is worth mentioning that the menu is normally fairly limited and substitutions are not allowed — I am a former cook and chef and I would love to have worked under such a menu -. But for mothers day an even more limited menu was available. As a person with some dietary restrictions it is not always easy to find suitable fare on a no substitutions menu, but I was able to make a choice and that in no way factors in my review.
Twenty minutes after placing our order we were informed that they had run out of the dish my wife ordered. Okay so she ordered something else. Quiche, after all that is precooked and should not take long. We waited, and we waited. Eventually the Waitress — who was quite good — brought some small cakes to «hold us over» We waited dome more. An hour had gone by, when our food finally arrived. one hour!
This restaurant has around 20 tables and they were not all full. I rally struggle to figure out how a breakfast order of an omelet and quiche from a twelve or so item menu can take that long, There were a few 6 and 8 person tables when we entered the restaurant and the cook (s) — I struggle to believe there were more than one — seemed unable to put out more than two meals at a time. but the was not even the worst part.
My meal was tasty, as was the filling of my wife’s quiche. The quiche’s crust, however was doughy and unfinished. My wife would never say anything and normally I would not. enough is enough though, the waitress properly senses something was wrong and I told her «We will not be back, we waited an hour and then the crust of her quiche is doughy and that should have never been served» The waitress did offer to make it right, presumably by ordering up another product, sorry we did not have another hour to waste. We reused sayiong again we simply would not be back.
The owner or manager visited out table and told us she would miss our business, Based on her next comment to the waitress I simply doubt it. The waitress asked if she should comp the Quiche — I never asked to have it comped for the record — the owner said «no because I have not had other complaints» Really! I worked restaurant for a number of years and the first rule is make the customer happy. I don’t feel that happens by in effect calling them liars in regard to a food complaint.
The restaurant business is hard and I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, but this was beyond the pale. A restaurant whioch puts this little emphasis on customer service does not deserve to be in business. Do yourself a favor and make another choice.

This restaurant is a charming place … while in KALISPELL, I had breakfast there. The breakfast was amazing — the bacon was cooked perfectly, and the egg dish (Florentine Benedict) was superb! A friend of mine told me that, on a few occasions, there’s another cook who comes in from time to time. She is supposedly really amazing and known for her braised short ribs and gourmet salads. I didn’t have time to go back, but will next time. The entire restaurant is charming inside (not so much from the outside), but don’t judge a book by its cover!

I’ve been here twice in the last month and I’m not sure I’d go back. This restaurant is a quaint old home, with a kitchen and staff that are not ready for a room full of people. (The service is extremely slow) The food is good but not great, and it’s pricey for what you get.

Breakfast was a joke this morning. Longest wait in recent memory. We were there the better part of TWO HOURS to have breakfast for a table of three. And, no. the place was not packed by any means. Maybe three or four other tables, all of whom were finishing up. The food was good, as usual, but the wait was ridiculous.
Come on guys (if you’re reading this)…tighten up the ship a bit. I regularly vote for Rising Sun for brunch, but if it’s going to take up the better part of an entire morning, I’ll have to pass.

LOVE it! Always excellent! Have the French Chicken Salad or Nicoise!
Pesto is to die for and the desserts are out of this world!