Axel's River Grille - Mendota

We celebrated our 41st anniversary tonight @ Axel’s River Grille. Our server, Trisha was outstanding & guided us on menu questions. Our filet mignon was very tender & tasty. My steak came slightly under done so they cooked it a little longer & it came back perfect! They gave us an anniversary dessert to end the meal! Will plan to return to Axel’s!!

Excellent service along with very good/excellent food Excellent dining evening

Food was very good, although steak could have been cooked a little rare.

This was my first bad experience at Axel's and it was really quite disappointing. To begin, my water glass had a residue of water and had to be replaced, it took ten minutes for any waitress to check in with us, and then she disappeared for another five before she returned to get our drink order. That's 15 minutes to place our drink order. The drinks arrived in a reasonable time and we placed our dinner orders. The salads arrived and we asked about the popovers. The waitress had forgotten and left to get some. The popovers finally arrived, after the salads were done, and they were nearly raw in the center. The entrees arrived. I had the New York strip steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and green beans. I asked for the steak to be medium-rare and it was barely pink and tough. The potatoes were a hard clump, so hard that they broke into pieces when I tried to eat them with a fork. The beans were okay, and the best part of the meal. I only at about a quarter of the steak and none of the potatoes.

My wife's walleye and son's ribeye were okay, but nothing special according to them.

I've had many good meals at Axel's and will give them the benefit of the doubt, but the $200 I spent last Sunday was a waste of money.

Our server was fantastic! She was attentive, not intrusive, anticipatory, genuine and knowledgable. I had not been to Axel's for a long time as I live on the other side of town. However, I was picking my son up at the airport and it was perfect!

The food was only mediocre, plus everything was served at room temperature (cold). I was surprised that portions were small (especially the walleye). Our drinks were comp'd by the manager since the kitchen was slow, but the food was still not worth the price. We will not be back, which is unfortunate since I used to really like Axel's.

Employees are very nice.
Food is very good.
Thanks.

It was a little too dark where we were sitting so it was hard to see our menus.

We were in town for a wedding. The food was good and the service was excellent. Would return

Overall our visit to Axel's was a good experience. A few items concerning the food do need a bit of attention, but the service was outstanding. Our server Sheri was great. We will ask for her again when we visit.

I had the Prime Rib and added on a Lobster Tail. My dinner was accompanied by a Caesar Salad and the two sides I chose were a "loaded" Baked potato and the Wild Rice. The Prime Rib was done just as I ordered it, Medium Rare, and the Lobster was cooked very well. The PR however was fairly bland and didn't have all that much flavor, and the Lobster Tail was quite small for the add-on price of $18, I'm guessing no more than a 4 oz Tail. The salad was ok, although a few pieces of lettuce were showing some minor brown discoloration so I'm assuming they are prepared ahead of time and allowed to age. The Wild Rice side was alright, but lacked any flavor whatsoever. I think with a little spice added to the dish it would be very good. Now for the biggest issue I had on our visit...... Being sort of a Baked Potato "snob" it was there I had a real problem. My potato had about 1/3 of the skin turning quite black and the other 2/3 of the skin was a dark brown. The meat was yellowish / golden in color and fairly hard, all issues indicating it was old and prepared WELL in advance of our 8pm meal. This is inexcusable to send out a spud like that IMO. It's such an obvious issue and so easily corrected before that plate leaves the kitchen. It should never happen, anywhere. Also, for a "loaded" Baked Potato, all that comes with it is a small cup of a seasoned sour cream blend. Not really my idea of "loaded", but that's what it's billed as.

Overall I was only mildly disappointed, mostly with the Potato situation, and I will definitely give Axel's another try. I have heard that their steaks are quiet good, and that is what I plan to try on our next visit to see if that is indeed the case.

Always good service. Enjoyed the ability to make slight menu modifications like adding shrimp to a salmon dish. Keep bar stocked or remove hard to get whisky or wine from menu as two requests were met with “ out of stock” . But will not deter returning.

I love coming to Axel's River Grille for their popovers, but this time, they were dry and got hard as soon as they started to cool down - I believe this means they weren't fresh or maybe sat in a warmer for too long. The rest of the meal was wonderful (coconut shrimp, roasted chicken, and sirloin), but the popovers were sadly a disappointment this time.

Great local restaurant. Wonderful atmosphere with cozy booth. Waitress was superb with just the right amount of interaction. Loved my chopinoe and couldn't get enough of the freshly made popovers.

The waitress was great. Popovers and brown butter are amazing! Prime rib and steaks were great too. It has a nice atmosphere.

Second time in 7 months. I just wasn't impressed. Next time I'll go to Mancini's.

Our food was cold, it took forever for my nephew to get his BLT sandwich, the cheesy hash browns had no cheese and to much onion, the waitress took the silverware without asking and did not replace them, so we had no knives to cut our food with, and the hostess at the front was on her cell phone and did not bother to open the doors on our way out or say thank you.

So NO! We will not be back and I would not recommend Axels to anybody else. You can go to Apple Bee’s for half the price and the food is hot with better service.

Our medium rare steaks were very poorly prepared . Sent them back with no issue until the server came back and tried to justify that the steak was fine. I had no issue with it until she came back with an attitude and yet still tipped her. Manager came out to let us know the meal was on her. This place is ridiculously overpriced for the level of service they provide

Loved our dining experience and our server Molly! The popover's are amazing! We are moving to Mendota Heights and this will be our go to place!

It was a busy night, and our server did a fabulous job attending to our needs! We have been going to Axel’s for many years and the food is always great!

It was an enjoyable evening. The only issue was with the mussels. My brother was served a few mussels that were not open and, therefore, uneatable. Your chef should be checking to see that the Mussels are fresh and alive before cooking. The information we gave to the waitress was not taken with the empathy that it should have been. Molly should have offered compensation for that.

Other than that, it was a nice evening.

Always a nice night with good food at this lovely restaurant!

Although I have dined at Axle's many times, this was a horrible experience. The service was terrible and when the food arrived, I did not receive what I had ordered. We tried to flag down a waitress for 10-15 minutes and they all just ignored us. We finally had to physically get up and go over to a waitress to ask her to send ours out. She took my plate, did not bother reheating the soup and returned with the proper entree. There was an apology but it did not sound sincere and there was no offer for a dessert or anything to help rectify the problem. Very disappointing and I'm not sure I will ever return.

My walleye was burned ... the wild rice had NO flavor at all ... The asparagus was burned ... the potato pancakes (?) were burned ...
The waitress was perfect and the manager completely understanding .... She treated us with carrot cake....
The couple with us had driven from Warrenville, IL to have lunch w/us at Axel's ... We have eaten at Axel's many times and this was not a good example for them or us....
We are coming back on the 4th of June to celebrate a 101 birthday .... Praying that will not be the same experience as this one was.

My food was very good. Our server Becka was very attentive. The ambiance of Axel's is very warm and cozy.

Brunch for five at Axels's was very good. Table (handicapped
accessible) was waiting for us and the beverages and carmel
rolls were excellent. Hash and omelets all passed with flying
colors; and service was very good. No complaints!!!

Greta was a great server.

Celebrating my dad's 100th birthday. Our waitress couldn't have been better. Food was great. We all had a great evening. Thanks for making it a special night for my family.

EXCELLENT as ALWAYS - Thank YOU, Mrs. Greta AND Louise! Shane, Ann & Justin

The food was amazing as always. Our server was Ashley and she did an outstanding job! A great place to go for any occasion.

Nice place, good food, and we got excellent service from Lori and with our table location for an extended family visit. Thank you!

Looking for a quiet, unhurried spot in a charming traditional atmosphere with excellent food at a good value? Look no further.

Great steaks and wonderful atmosphere. Excellent wait staff and wine list.

We've been customers for years. Always a very good meal, friendly service, prices aligned with the food.

Tonight was different, friendly service was followed by cold loaded undercooked baked potatoes (both of us) and cold green beans. Not even a hint of warmth. Even the popovers were room temp.

Onion rings were not fried throughout, doughy, gummy but hot! Even our French Onion soup lacked finesse. Overfilled cups and literally spilled all over the plate. One was topped nicely, the other the cheese was in the bottom of the cup.

Our filets were the only saving grace. Prepared properly and served warm.

Our server was pleasant, but had marginal support and no one ever brought around a water refill.

Our server saved the evening with a birthday dessert which we took home.

Maybe warmed up leftovers will be better. Might be time for the kitchen staff to look at Quality Control and hire a knowledgeable Expeditor.

All-you-can-eat crab was not a good value at $38+. My dinner mates did, however, like their meals of salmon and mussels. The waitress, who was very nice, but was hard pressed to pay much attention to us. It was extremely difficult to get her attention when we were ready to order etc. Not sure I would try Axel's again.

Server Roxanne was fabulous. Booth was not very comfortable. Was u shaped booth.

Always enjoy Axels. Great food and popovers are amazing! This week service was a bit off. Pleasant server but sometimes slow. Drinks took forever. It was overall very good just not as good as I’ve experienced previously. Will always be one of my favorites

Extremely slow service. We were there for 50 minutes before receiving food. My guest asked for tuna medium and it was clearly rare. We had to get back to work and were very disappointed in how long everything took. Been there a number of times, this was the first time I have been so disappointed

The food is always terrific as is the ambiance. We have eaten at Axel's River Grill many times and will return again and again. This time the service was slow, though we have found this to be unusual.

The trend now is to blanch vegetables, leaving them almost raw. We were provided with only butter knives which were barely suited for that purpose, making the veggies difficult to cut. The restaurant is in business to make money, but after feeding 600 people for the brunch, they could have reduced the number of tables so that the patrons could get through the dining area without needing acrobatic skills during supper.

Still like the old "Parker House" and will return, only during a time when it's not so busy.

This experience was much less positive than any other experience we have had here--usually it is fantastic. The popovers, which are usually wonderful, were stale and inedible. The rest of the meal and drinks were great--the main issue was the length of time we waited as it took an hour between our starters and getting our meal. The waiter checked in to say food would be coming a couple of times but did not ask us if we would like more drinks until the food was there and we would have ordered more while waiting. It was odd because when we got there, there appeared to be many open tables and it was not until after we ordered that is seemed busy.