Baker’s Bar and Grille

I downloaded the Unilocal app just so I could give this sorry excuse of a restaurant the review it deserves. As I write this review, I am strongly fighting the urge to vomit. I’m disappointed that Unilocal forces me to give them atleast one star. I would happily pay money to the app to give negative stars.
Where to begin? The hostess was rude. 20 minutes between sitting down and receiving our first drinks. The microwaved spinach artichoke dip was essentially melted cream cheese. No other flavors were present.
The waiter was brutally honest with us and only recommended the Mac and cheese dish. It was noodles with velveeta cheese and melted Kraft singles. This garbage cost 17 dollars and a two hour wait for the food to arrive.
This dinner has made a notre dame win merely seem like a footnote on this trip. If I had a time machine that could only be used once, I would go back in time 3 hours and go to the Burger King two blocks away. Atleast you know what you’re getting there.
For Gods sake, please don’t ever eat here.

I wish I could select less than 1 star for this rating. The food was over-​priced & every dish (appetizer/​entrée) tasted like it was made in the microwave. This restaurant was disappointing enough to almost ruin our first trip to see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat Wake Forest in Football if that’s even possible. I can only hope the producers of Bar Rescue take notice.

Baker’s is located in the atrium of the Doubletree Hotel and is definitely not my first choice in downtown dining. They do a great job with events like the Wine Walk but the regular dining experience is a miss.
I recently stopped in with a friend on a Thursday night before a concert at the Morris Performing Arts Center. We had tried LaSalle Grill and LKT, but they were packed and we wanted something close by.
We grabbed a couple seats at the bar and ordered our drinks. I will say the bartender did a great job. The bar seats filled up and the place was severely understaffed. She was racing around like crazy keeping everyone’s drinks filled.
We ordered the nachos with grilled chicken to share. We waited… and waited… and waited. Several other folks arrived, ordered and were served their food while we waited. When we asked, the bartender told us it takes longer since we ordered with chicken. The nachos finally arrived and were disastrous. For the upcharge and wait, there were about four pieces of diced chicken. The plate if chips was topped with some barely melted cheese on the top and a pile of plain chips underneath… no thanks! We ended up with the spinach artichoke dips instead which was a mayonaissy mess. At least the drinks were good!

This place should be busy, but it isn’t because the food is bad (except dessert!). Friendly staff, great waitress, but all meaningless because of the food. This is my second time here and the experience was the same. Sorry, can’t give it more than 2 stars.

The food was really bad and order was not correct. The lettuce for my salad was brown. The French fries were old and cold. Service was slow even though there weren’t many people.

Was invited to lunch here. Tried the meatloaf melt sandwich. They must just have this laying around in a meatloaf pan. The edges were a hard inedible crust. Rest of it was dry. Had a piece is chocolate cake. It was a layered glob-​like chocolate substance. Worst part was it is very expensive. Somebody else had the baked macaroni & cheese. No cheese sauce! Melted cheese over pasta. They had 3 bites and sent it back.

I spent a few days in the adjoining hotel for a business conference, so I automatically gravitated to the lobby bar after a long day.
The beer selection was surprising and I enjoyed several hard to get craft beers on tap. The bar itself is modern and clean with good design and an atmosphere conducive to socializing.
The staff was terrific. Our bartender Jaqui was spot on. She was attentive, product knowledgable, pleasant, and fun to be around. She also was very helpful with local recommendations and directions. I would hire her in my bar in a minute.
Most lobby bars/​hotel bars are nothing to write home about, but I will still visit this one, even if I don’t stay at the hotel.

It took a half an hour to get drinks and I got the wrong beer. 45 minutes for bland bang shrimp that was rubbery. When the entrée came and was completely the wrong order (not even close) and I could see that it had sat under the heat lamp for a long time and my girlfriend said her entrée was cold and tasted off, we decided to call it quits. We took 10 minutes to finish our drinks and no manager came out to find out why we were so unhappy.

I have ate here twice. The first experience was terrible. My salad was good but the problem is the fire alarm went off after I finished my food and I was enjoying a glass of wine. Although it was obviously a false alarm and their was an exit right behind me, the bartender insisted I evacuate to the lobby. After the firemen came and went, the same bartender looked directly at me and went back to the bar without extending an invitation to return to the bar. I are here again flew lunch today (out of convenience only). My sandwich was good and my sweet potato fries were also pretty good.

I was unexpectantly spending the night in South Bend due to a canceled flight. Since it was late a colleague and I ate the the hotel restaurant (Baker’s). I had the pork chop which I enjoyed and the prices were reasonable.
The service was not the best, but not absurdly bad.

I stay here at the Doubletree every month and this was the first dinner I tried. I sat at the bar and ordered the French dip sandwich. It ended up being an over done steak-​umms on a roll. It came with «crispy» fries. I have crispy in parenthesis because that’s what they called them, but they came out soft and mushy. Beer was cold and the bartender was friendly. Good clean atmosphere for watching a game and drinking a beer while out of town.

I was pumped to see what South Bend had up its sleeve for me when I visited for work, and much to my dismay our event let out super late and for fear of driving around an unfamiliar city half asleep, I just opted into the restaurant in the hotel (DoubleTree).
Now, my jaw dropped at the prices for dinner, I was expecting to be waayyy overcharged for a hotel dinner, but actually the food was pretty good and the bill wasn’t bad either. I went for the Studeburger (basically a blue cheese burger) and it was a great greasy treat after a long day. Our server was slightly strange but looking past that, dinner was very pleasant for where it is located.
We went back to this little ditty for breakfast and their «buffet» was more of a «scam-​ay» than anything. There was hardly anything and the hot food was cool while the cold food was lukewarm… yuck. And it was $ 15. What. The. Hell.
All in all, I’d stop in again for a late night dinner if need be but I’ll be going to Starbucks for bfast the next time around.

I came here several times for breakfast while staying in the attached Doubletree. This place has great service — they are attentive and accommodating. One morning I had tried to order room service because I knew I’d be in a hurry. The hotel did not process my order correctly though, so 5 minutes before I had to leave I still had no food. The hotel told me to go down to Baker’s and they’d take care of me. Sure enough, I rushed down and they were waiting with to-​go containers; the waitress prepped my coffee while I dumped buffet food in the boxes. It wasn’t fun eating cold food in my car while I sat outside my work location, but hey, it was better than an empty stomach.
The buffet itself is a little pricy ($ 15!!!) for what you get, if you’re looking at just the food — but the service makes up for it. On my last visit there, they pretty much left me alone (after bringing my food) except to ask if I wanted more coffee or water, which is exactly what I wanted.