Thirsty Perch

We went for dinner June 13 which is before the super busy time in South haven. They were out of oysters but we suspected it had something to do with the diminished tourist traffic in town. So we were okay with that. We ordered fried perch with sweet potato fries and loved our meal. The beer battered perch was fresh and crispy. They had a good selection of top shelf liquor and poured generous drinks.

My wife and I had an amazing day enjoying Holland and some beach time in Saugatuck. Upon recommendation from our hotel we decided to have dinner at the Thirsty Perch. My wife ordered oysters on the half shell. Thirty minutes later they arrived. When I asked for a Bloody Mary the bartender looked at me and said «that’s a lot of prep». At that point we should have asked for the check. Of course we didn’t. The drama continued. My wife ordered surf and turf. The bartender said they were out of steak but someone was picking some up from one of their other restaurants. The turf was served after about thirty minutes. No surf. After over thirty more minutes we asked where the other half of her meal was. No one could give us a good answer except they had two large groups they were serving. After talking to the manager my wife’s meal was removed from the bill. The final straw was waiting for another twenty minutes for them to pick up our credit card and check. My wife picked up the check and hand delivered it to one of the bartenders. She handed it to our waitress /​bartender and told her we were waiting to cash out. Literally another fifteen minutes passed before she realized she had forgotten us. This place has real problems from top to bottom. Please spare yourself the headaches and go somewhere else, even if it’s Wendy’s.

Terrible. The worst service ever. Oysters took 30 minutes to get. Ordered surf and turf. Oh no turf. Oh yes there is turf… 30 minutes after steak arrived … Oh, no crab. Are you kidding me? I blame the owner. You have trained your staff poorly and do not care about customer service or a quality experience. You will be out of business in next year. Don’t try people!

Normally we love to read Unilocal reviews on restaurants before going and then compare to our experience. I wish I would have read Jay S’s experience. What a f#@king joke. They should close and lock their doors. Bar tender kept apologizing, it was a raw bar (are you $hittting me?) no raw seafood available, look we only wanted to get some good oysters — OUT, a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon blanc — OUT. Save your time and money, and go to to the Idler for wine and fresh oysters. If I could have left negative stars I would have.

Sitting here finishing the best meal we have had in South Haven. After vacationing here for 10 years, we wanted something we had not tried. Not italian, not pizza, not Clementines. So our first visit to the Thirsty Perch. VEEERY skeptical after looking at the recent reviews, but WOW. Was there early on a Saturday night, seated immediately. Shrimp cocktail and potato slices (not really skins) were great appetizers. The perch sandwiches were great, sweet potato fries were best ever. One of us had surf and turf — for $ 20 an awesome steak and more crab than we could eat.
Was in and out in an hour and fifteen, Casey did a great job as our server and the manager checked in 3 times including pouring water.
Looks like the Thirsty Perch is trying hard to overcome the previous reviews!

If I could post negative stars, I would. The quality of the food was adequate, but the service and depleted kitchen staff made it a horrible experience. Too many menu items were not available and the server forgot ordered items. Two and one half hours for a simple meal is ridiculous.
No manager offered any explanations. I called the restaurant the following day and three days later I’m still waiting for a return call.
I can’t imagine ever returning here unless I hear from management and my only recourse is to post truthful negative reviews both on line and in person.

Within 4 hours of eating there I was hurling my guts out. I got food poisoning that lasted for about 36 hours. I had the perch sandwich. Maybe they kept the perch too long, or the oil it was fried in… I don’t know. Thank God I did not order the oysters!!! And like another reviewer said – the server seemed to be stoned. I will never go back to a place that made me sick.

We had a family gathering last fall, with people coming from all over the USA. I called three weeks before to make reservations… I should have known something was wrong when I had to call them back, instead of them calling me as promised. I went ahead, though. On the day of the event, about 30 minutes before our scheduled arrival time, I thought, I better call to be sure. They had no record of my reservation, and no clue who I was. We went anyway. They gave us a freezing cold room which of course we rejected, and finally after 15 – 20 minutes of haggling over a space large enough for our group, we were seated. The food was okay, but the service was poor at best, and overshadowed the occasion.

Came out to the lakeshore on a beautiful late February afternoon to walk the beach and grab a bite to eat. I’ve been meaning to try the Pearch, but this was my first attempt. The atmosphere is great. Nice bar area. Nice dining layout. The menu is heavy on seafood, as expected. The food, perch sandwich and a salmon burger, was slow to arrive but very tasty. The service was terrible. Very disengaged server. I never got a refill on my drink. As a matter of fact, we only had one return visit from the server and had to ask the manager for our bill long after we finished eating. The food saved the day.

Went to the Thirsty Perch for the first time and it was amazing! The staff and the manager were awesome! Kevin, the manager, came over to our table to make sure everything was okay. He went above and beyond to make sure our experience was the best it could be! The food was absolutely delicious! Burgers were great and the perch was to die for, the best perch I have ever had! Thank you Kevin, Summer and the rest of the staff on making our visit the best it could be! You have to try the Thirsty Perch! Thanks again Kevin!

Horrible service. Seemed like the staff was stoned. Slow, indifferent. Forgot to bring drinks. Forgot silverware after bringing meal 5 minutes earlier. Had to hunt down bill. Food sub par.

This is a go to spot when we visit South Haven. Not disappointed tonight. My wife had a tasty perch/​slaw sandwich, I had fish tacos with sweet potato fries. Promptly served, with excellent service. Terrific playlist, too. We’ll keep going back!

We came here with a group of 6 and everyone enjoyed their food and drinks. The men enjoyed the flights of beers. Lobster mac and cheese was a hit. Potato skins and calamari were perfect to share as an appetizer. I had the chicken piccata and it was delicious! I would definitely come here again.
Super surprised by the previous reviews. This place was great!

We did NOT eat here but the place and menu looked really good. We stopped in for drinks and the staff was great. We had some great cocktails and they turned on our sporting event for us without hassle. The bartender was very knowledgeable and great to chat with. we would like to come back to try the food soon.

Visually, Thirsty Perch is a nice enough place. A nice looking bar area and a nice roomy seating area. No out-​door seating.
Our first impression started out bad. We were meeting family. We arrived early. Even though we had a reservation for a large group and there were almost no other customers, they didn’t set up our table until everyone had arrived. (To sell drinks at the bar?)
When we did get seated, our server was fine but it took forever for the food to arrive. From the time we were seated to the time we paid the bill we were there for 2−½ hours. Good thing we were in no hurry.
Two of our group don’t eat fish and it turned out that TP were out of the one steak selection. They opted for the chicken. My wife had the pan fried perch which was OK, but not as good as she had a few days earlier at Clementine’s. I had the Bouillabaisse. I have had fish stews all over the world and this was the worst that I have had. While the fish was very good and tender, the stew it was served in was terrible. It was thick, too salty and when it arrived it already had a skin forming on the top that indicated it had been sitting in the back too long before serving.

The Thirsty Perch gets one star because zero was not an option.
Before visiting the Thirsty Perch, I looked it up on Unilocal and saw that it only had 2 stars. I figured people were just being snobby and that the reviews were exaggerated. Even read a review that said, «Should have listened to the other reviews».
In order to keep this review short I’ll quickly summarize our experience.
1. Ordered fried perch. It was soggy and flavorless. Also over priced.
2. Wife ordered nachos. Nachos supposedly came with black bean and tomato salsa. Looked like someone had just scooped some canned black beans and canned diced tomatoes over the nachos. Did not resemble salsa. Also you could choose your choice of meat, chicken, beef, or vegetarian. Priced at $ 12. These were the most pathetic nachos I’ve ever seen. Hardly any toppings, cheese not melted in the middle, and the chicken was bland.
3. The bill was screwed up. We were charged $ 5 extra (making the nachos $ 17) for the chicken though it was NOT listed in the menu as an up charge. I addressed the issue with the manager and to his credit be corrected the bill. As he apologized for the mistake he said that the up charge was hard to communicate (no it’s not, just add it to the menu).
I do not recommend this restaurant, and hope you heed the warnings in the other reviews.

There’s something downright fishy about Thirsty Perch, and it’s not the menu. We arrived at around 6.00pm on a Friday evening, and there were perhaps only five or six tables occupied; nonetheless, we were told — without any additional explanation — that there would be a thirty to forty minute wait to be seated. We asked if we could eat at the bar, and the hostess wasn’t sure and said she’d check, but I think she just clocked off instead because we didn’t see her again. Eventually, after we’d been sitting at the bar unattended for ten minutes, the bar manager informed us that yes, we could eat at the bar, but there would be — you guessed it — a thirty to forty minute wait before we could order. He was reluctant to even let us look at a menu. At this point we decided we’d just have a couple of drinks and then find somewhere else to eat, so unfortunately I’m not able to offer any evaluation of the food. The drinks selection was decent, at least. The funny thing is that staff members must have outnumbered patrons by more than 2:1. It was actually rather unnerving. There were loads of them! Some were milling around at the end of the bar. Others were in a sort of huddle, whispering by the front door. One guy was wandering around with a pitcher of ice water, but with only a handful of tables occupied, he was drastically underemployed, and anyway, his shambling gait and vacant stare suggested that he was either incredibly high, or else suffering from sun stroke. In this entire time, we saw literally no food delivered to the dining room. While we waited for our drinks, I decided to browse Unilocal reviews, and lo and behold, our experience suddenly seemed eerily familiar.
All in all, this place gave the impression of a restaurant being run by amateurs on some sort of day release program. I went home and cooked myself a delicious omelet with fresh shrimp and cilantro, which took me about five minutes, total.

The best way I can describe my experience is … Eh.
We came to the Thirsty Perch to celebrate my boyfriend’s Mom’s birthday. And from the get-​go, the experience left a lot to be desired.
Our waitress Casey had the most indifferent attitude. To be honest, my guess is that she was stoned or something, because the service was just THAT bad. She was slow on refilling water, had a tough time figuring out where to put food on table. Altogether just odd.
The food was just okay. For a seafood restaurant it was pretty disappointing. My boyfriend ordered the shrimp, the breading of which came out barely cooked — not to mention the kitchen gave him the wrong type of fries. My salad was supposed to have a hard boiled egg, but the kitchen apparently messed it up and it was going to take 8 minutes to boil a new one… It was just all types of disastrous. My boyfriend’s sister did have the lobster mac and cheese and said it was very good … The one redeeming moment of the meal.
A manager did stop by the table to ask how the meal was. But it was very clear he wasn’t all that interested in our answer, but rather that this was a requirement for him.
Worst of all, as I mentioned we went out to eat to celebrate a birthday. We told the waitress that we had a birthday in our party. She came by the table, asked to look at my boyfriend’s mom’s ID to verify the date — her real birthday is on Tuesday — and then did nothing about it. It was the most bizarre event ever.
Last but certainly not least, we got hit with a dose of classic server over sharing. «Thanks for coming in and enjoy the rest of the weekend for me. I’ve been working so much I can’t keep track of what day it is anymore. So just enjoy the rest of the day. Whew, you know the service industry.»
As we left, the hostess didn’t even say goodbye, which shouldn’t have even been surprising at that point.
Now it really doesn’t take a lot to impress me, but decent food, half way decent service and a host staff with pulse. And Thirsty Perch sure left a lot to be desired. All in all, really comes as no surprise that the place was relatively empty on a Sunday evening.

Would not recommend
I ordered the fried shrimp which the menu described as «lightly dusted» but came out with nearly a half inch of undercooked cornmeal on it. Once you cut through it the shrimp was of good quality but lacked flavor. The baked potato lacked flavor as well.
Another issue was the seating arrangements. While we seated promptly, we were told they would try to squeeze us into a space despite there being 8 open tables. We heard the manager tell many visitors the same thing. Several other customers who arrived after we did had to wait in line despite several open tables. That doesn’t even count the tables that weren’t being bussed and cleared after people left. Serious staffing issues.

I was starving and needed a place to eat. I had already been impressed with several of the local places around town, but didn’t want to wait in the long lines so I came to the Thirsty Perch despite the terrible reviews.
Entering the establishment I was greeted warmly by the host and immediately seated. It took a little bit of time for my waiter to show up (maybe 5 minutes), but I could see that he was busy with several tables. Once my server did show up, he was very attentive throughout my entire meal.
I started off with a cup of clam chowder, and was happy that it was homemade and very tasty, but disappointed about how thin it was (pretty much just a broth).
Next up was the main course of mahi tacos with homemade BBQ chips. I was extremely happy with the flavor of the mahi tacos. They had a nice tang to them followed by a spicy burn, very delicious. The chips were also very good. They were thick cut like kettle chips and heavily coated with seasoning. Very good.
The only knock I have about this place was that the portions seemed very small for what you pay for. I definitely left this place hungry, but that did leave room for the ice cream shop that I hit later.