The Goat Soup and Whiskey

After a full morning of biking on Put-​In-​Bay having lunch at The Goat is a great way to tee up your afternoon. If you’re able, sit out on the covered deck and bask in the beautiful Lake Erie breezes that waft through.
Highly recommended is the chowder — definitely have a caloric splurge and go for the bowl versus a cup. Sandwiches here are toothsome, but nothing that is over the top excellent. Just good solid lunch fare.
There’s a bike rack out back — which took us a moment to find. One suggestion might be to put in a larger, more prominent bike rack out front. By the time we left, there were seven (7) bikes chained in a big heap. We were able to extract our trusty cycles, but not without a little bit of juggling so as not to cause any damage.

Over priced generic food … like most on the island.
Had the walleye… basically fish and chips … Small portions for Large price.

My Wife & I came to Put-​In-​Bay to spend some quality time together. I have been battling Lyme Disease and just had a heart attack two weeks ago. We needed some much needed time together to relax. We went to the Goat for dinner. When we arrived at the Goat we were greeted by the manager/​hostess John Maginty. John Maginty advised us that there would be a 30 to 40 minute wait before we could be seated. My Wife & I then had a seat at the bar which was a minimum of 4ft from John Maginty and his hostess stand. As my Wife & I sat there we observed John Maginty on two occasions seat people who had just come in, with no reservations, before us or anyone else who had been waiting to be seated for over 40 minutes! On the second occasion I wanted to make sure, so I ask the lady who he had just seated if they had reservations? The lady responded that «no», they never have to make reservstions. I then ask the bartender for a manager and they advised John Maginty was the manager. I then confronted John Maginty and ask him politely why he had allowed guests that had come in 40 minutes after us, to be seated before us, with no reservation? John Maginty then tried to say he had his assistant call our names and we did not hear it. I advised John Maginty that was a lie and that I had been listening to every word he and anybody he had spoken with had said since we had came in. My Wife and I were within 4ft of John Maginty the entire time and did not leave our seats at the bar for one second. We listened to every word John Maginty said, and every word his assistant said. John Maginty then became nervous and scared because he knew I had called him out on the fact he was showing favoritism to certain customers that had come in long after many other customers had already waited over 40 minutes to be seated. John Maginty then advised me I could leave the restaurant because he could not defend the poor customer service and blatant lack of respect for his customers. I then told John Maginty I wanted to know the name of the owner of the establishment. John Maginty advised me he was the owner. I was then told again to leave and did so while telling John Maginty he needed to stop seating favored customers right away when he had other customers who had been waiting for over 40 minutes.
I called the resturant after leaving and ask who the owner was and was NOT given Johns name as the owner. John Maginty had lied to me for a second time!!! The actual owners name is Scott Jackson! This was the last thing my Wife & I needed to deal with after all we have been through with my Lyme Disease and Heart Attack just two weeks before!!! We were looking forward to a romantic night out at a supposedly «Classy» resturant. Instead we were treated like trash and with disrespect by John Maginty! I strongly recommend if you visit this resturant, you keep a close eye on John Maginty and his shady business practice!
UPDATE! Since I have posted this review which originally had my phone number listed for the owner to reach me, I have received late night harassing phone calls on numerous occasions from John Maginty’s friends and family! Just goes to show the amount of class and maturity the people of «The Goat» have! I actually feel sorry for these people if this is the only thing they have better to do with their lives!!! I have emailed the owner and have not received a reply back by email or by phone. I guess the owner Scott Jackson approves of this type of treatment of his customers. A restaurant greatly lacking moral integrity all around.

excellent food and varied menu… and beautiful surroundings…

One of the saltier places we went on the island. Hugely disappointed in the tiramisu. Server said it was great because they had an Italian chef that made it. Sorry, but no. Also the server could’ve been trained a little more on the menu items. When asking questions about the food, she didn’t know the answers. Instead of getting them she gave us answers without answering the question. One plus was their cheeseburger soup! It came garnished with a couple of French fries and was very good.

We were very disappointed in the quality of the food at Goat. We ordered French Onion Soup to start. It was a corner of wonder bread with cheese so thin that it crisped on the bread. Everything tasted like salt salt and more salt. Burger=salt salad=salt fries=salt. And it was way overpriced for the quality. Don’t eat here. On the bright side, it was good service. Go chat, just don’t eat.

The Goat is by far our favorite restaurant on the Bay. Great ambiance, great service, great food! Vegetables and herbs are grown on site and definitely add to that fresh flavor. Truly does serve the best soups. You haven’t truly experienced your trip to the Bay without enjoying the cuisine at The Goat

When on Put-​In-​Bay you defninitely want to have a meal at this establishment. At first glance — they have beautiful flowers everywhere and a fresh garden in the back where they hand-​pick their vegetables and herbs (doesn’t get fresher than that!). You can sit inside or outside and there is a small bar area as well. The food is just wonderful — full of flavor and uniqueness! The soups are wonderful — amazing flavors in each one and they have 4 options each day. For lunch — I usually get the Fish Tacos (the sauce is the best) but even the burgers are very good. For dinner you can’t go wrong with any of it! The Mushroom Chicken dish is wonderful– as is the Seafood pasta… just to name a few. Overall– we go here several times a summer and never leave with regrets!

Pretty good fare, for the location and price.
Wife and I spent a day on the island and she had been here previously and wanted me to try it as well. We ordered two dished to split… the perch fish tacos and a
sampler” platter of two different kinds of soup and a salad.
The perch tacos were really solid, lightly battered fish with all the «usual» trimmings and their own secret sauce. Very tasty indeed! The tacos were served with fried that were nothing special.
For the soup and salad plate we had the green chili chicken and a lamb barley. Both were good, but my wife really liked them better than i did… not that they were bad, they just lacked any real depth of flavor. The salad was quite good with a nice homemade ranch dressing on top.
My wife also had a basil Mojito which she enjoyed very much. Would definitely eat here again, especially on their lovely outside (covered) deck.

Food was ok… drinks we’re watered down. We ordered a Moscow Mule and had to put a 10 dollar deposit on the cups.

Such amazing food with great prices. It’s a little bit of a walk from the downtown area but well worth it! Not to mention they have Tofts ice cream, homemade fudge, and anything else chocolate you could want right below the restaurant! Amazing!

Chicken chili is always very tasty. Goes well with an ice cold beer. Because it is off the beaten path, it is a good place to take refuge from the village on busy weekends.

We came in here on a Friday night with a bachelorette party and they luckily were able to seat all 12 of us at once. The poor servers — we weren’t expecting to go out for dinner Friday, otherwise I’d have made us a reservation!
I ordered the chicken parm and it was very good. Perfect amount of cheese, chicken was perfectly cooked, and there was plenty of sauce and noodles to go with it. The sauce smelled a LOT more garlicy than it actually tasted, so I was only slightly disappointed to find that. (I know that’s a ridiculous thing to be disappointed by, but I really love garlic! My poor boyfriend.)
The stuffed mushrooms were also very good as an appetizer.
The staff was very patient with us, helped us and actually split all of our checks for us too! Major props… I’d like to come back here if we spend another weekend on the island and eat here when I can really enjoy the food, rather than making sure everyone has everything they need.

Very expensive. They would not seat a party of 10 together but next to us was a party of nine. We waited 5 minutes and no server ever showed up.

My wife and I had lunch here on Sunday. Nice ambiance, although it’s not on the water. Our server Jen was very helpful and attentive. We each had a cup of soup, shrimp and crab chowder and a green chili. Both were very good. We split a chicken caesar wrap with parmesan truffle french fries. The wrap was very good and the fries were outstanding. $ 35 including tax, before tip. Goat has some of the best food on the island.

My fiancée and I had a great experience at the Goat at Put in Bay. We will definitely return the next time we are on the island. I ordered a mojito and was definitely not disappointed. My fiancée tried one of the many whiskeys listed on the menu and was pleased with his selection.
As for food, our server Mariah was precious. She recommended some selections that she had yet to try because they looked and smelled delicious (I hope she takes our review of the escargot and braves the little critters, herself!). We had the escargot, which was our first snail endeavor, and were not disappointed. They were delicious and we will order them again. Our food came out hot and Mariah provided good conversation, great service, and a smiling face… what more can you ask for? We had the Perch tacos and the Perch Po’ Boy… both of which we recommend highly. Their creative soups are delicious, too! You have to try them… it’s in the name!
Also very endearing that the restaurant has the history surrounding the name and the «soup» theme on the menu. We’ll be back!

Doggone good!
Like the other reviews say — enjoy the perch tacos.
Or…enjoy the perch dinner. It’s ALL good.
The beer cheese soup was exquisite!
The Peach Blueberry pie for dessert — oh my god! So good I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Gotta try that!
Service was great, fast, friendly, efficient, and the server got 100% of the orders exactly correct.
Definitely will go back to this place if I’m on the island again.

I highly recommend the perch tacos, as Kevin L. said they are some of the best fish tacos you’ll try!
I also recommend the Reuben balls for something different: deep-​fried balls of corned beef and sauerkraut with thousand island dressing on the side for dipping.
We really enjoyed sitting out on the porch for lunch, the location is pretty and they have board games to play while you wait, who doesn’t love a good game of Connect 4?

We also, like others, were told about this place by locals. On our last night, we decided to try it. Here is the story:
Service was great. Our waitress was very friendly and even when a person in our party, who ordered a steak medium rare, and it came to the table well done, send back her meal, she seemed very accommodating. That’s when things went south…
20 minutes later, after the rest of us had pretty much finished, her meal came back. Was still not the temperature she wanted, but we didn’t want to wait another ½ hour to fix it. She ate her meal and when I received the check, I asked out waitress if she thought it was right to charge us for he meal that was wrong. She went and got the manager.
The manager came over and we went through the story with him. He didn’t seem to care only saying that they made up for the mistake with the second meal. I informed him that it was still not right and he said he didn’t care and would not make any changes to our $ 330 bill. Talking to our waitress, I let her know how upset I was. Another manager was passing by, overheard my conversation (which was not inappropriate at all) and stopped and told me I can’t talk to «her staff» that way. Well that sent me over the edge.
I told her to mind her own business. She told me to leave the restaurant and threatened to call the police. I paid our bill. Tipped our waitress (who did nothing wrong) and left.
I believe this place is overpriced for the quality of food, and where our service was fine, how they dealt with the issue was way wrong. I would STRONGLY recommend against this place.

My favorite restaurant on the island. All the soups are homemade and excellent. Sauces for all dishes are made fresh in kitchen for individual dishes. Perch tacos are signature dish and best I’ve ever had — the kick it up a notch. Walleye, steaks, all great. Restaurant has a garden with fresh tomatoes available in season for Caprese salad, one of my husband’s favorite dishes. Basil mojito is very good.
Restaurant is a little off the beaten path, family friendly with outdoor seating available. Have always had good service.