MacKenzie River Pizza, Grill & Pub

Friday 4/18/2025, 10 pm. A last minute decision to get a quick, late night bite to eat. The Greek Flatbread was delicious! The crust was perfect! And Shannon was, by far, a fantastic hostess! She knows the menu items and is efficient. She's very friendly, down to earth, and a great conversationalist! I highly recommend this place. Stop in soon to help the servers with their contest! When you mention your favorite server's name in a review, they might win. That means their GM, Rachelle Lee, will work their shift, plus the winning server gets to keep the money! 🙂

we love this place! I always recommend their burgers! our server today was Aaron stipek and he was great! we also had a once in a lifetime experience where a wonderful gentleman gifted us $100 for dinner and gave each of the kids $10. We feel so grateful for the whole experience we had today. Im looking for an opportunity to pay it forward 😁 I hope this gets our server the win!

Maya was our server and she was amazing. Prompt and friendly the entire visit.

I remember when this place first opened and replaced Max & Erma’s. The first time I came here, the food was good! Since then though, I haven’t had good experiences. Went there today because I wanted to give it another try & honestly was and still am sick to my stomach. I feel eating inside a McDonald’s is probably better and more comfortable than this.

The aroma of the entire restaurant was giving porter potty…

Also, came in an hour after they opened and it’s honestly like they didn’t prepare or anything.

It’s sad really because I know this restaurant can be so good, but unfortunately I don’t think the people care very much.

Anyways, the food was so greasy. Started with pretzels which you can’t mess up pretzels, but my hands were glistening afterwards lol.

Then, I got the willow creek sandwich with tortilla chips. I don’t think I’ve had this sandwich and not liked it.
It’s a simple turkey, cheese, mayo sandwich w/ tortilla chips, but the sandwich was packed with mayo and the tortilla chips tasted like they had been fried in old grease.

I didn’t even finish my meal

I didn’t say anything or complain because I truly don’t care at this point. If I ever go back to this restaurant, it will be the one in Beavercreek & honestly I’m not willing to drive that far for mediocre.

There are so many other restaurants that are 10 times better. Like:

- Chili’s
- Chick Fil A
- Panera
- Chipotle
- Bdubs
- Al-Zaytuna Grill (the BEST middle eastern food I have ever had!)
- Taqueria El Comal
- Five guys

Basically anything that is not this.

Hope this helps your choosing for a delicious, welcoming, smell good, food experience!!!

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 2

I want so badly to give a higher review, but a 1 is necessary. We’ve been here several times over the past few years and have yet to leave without an outrageous bill, cold food and decent overall experience. Our total bill for family of 3 (11 year old included)- was $110 before tip! This was a Sunday at lunchtime. We were one of two tables sat and it took several minutes for the bartender to pour our drinks- she would rather take a nap in the back booth than run our drinks. We literally saw her napping. My husband’s tacos were cold and we waited 20 minutes for our meal. Don’t waste your money!

Food: 1

Service: 2

If I could give 0 stars, I would. The bathrooms smell disgusting. It took 10 minutes to get the drinks. The food was cold and overpriced. Do not recommend. There were fruit flies everywhere. The Bartender was asleep in the back booth. We’ve given this place several chances hoping for a better experience. Unfortunately, we will not be back

Service: 2

Came in with a reservation of about 20 people. The table was RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BATHROOM, The entire restaurant smelled like stagnant water, and the manager was abrupt, loud, and rude. Will NOT be coming back.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 2

Service: 3

Waitress was polite and attentive. The food was blah. My burger was not what I ordered. When I showed the waitress, she apologized and ordered another. I nibble on my fries while my wife ate her meal and I waited for my replacement burger. Burger arrived as ordered and hot and my wife finished with her meal. No adjustments or discounts made to my bill after receiving the wrong order and having to wait for replacement. Food blah, Service needs improvement, Atmosphere interesting, but the men's room was gross and had large gnats flying around.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 1

Service: 1

I have given this place a few chances over the years. None have particularly impressed me. My most recent visit yesterday means I will not be returning. This location has a severe management issue. Other Mackenzie River locations do not exhibit the same problems. First off, the smell of the bathrooms greeted you in the foyer before you even made it into the restaurant. We were seated quickly and the hostess took our drink order. It was a long while before we saw our waitress. When she did come by to take our order, she let us know that she had two large parties she was waiting on as well. Unfortunately, even after those parties left, she returned only to run our card. Kitchen staff brought our food, and bar staff checked on us once. The food was mediocre at best - the black and blue bites were burned. The chicken on my sandwich was lukewarm.
I had the very unfortunate need to use the restroom while there - the smell in the corridor was quite pungent. Once in the restroom, it was evident they are cleaned rarely, if at all. There was splatter all over the wall, a very bad caulking job trying to seal the urinal to the wall, and the baseboard peeling away from water damage.
The final bit of info I will leave in this review comes from public record - an inspection on July 31, 2024, which found 6 critical and 7 non-critical violations, nearly lost them their food service license after the inspector observed water from the roof leaking on several food contact surfaces, with the inspector noting “To follow-up. Further enforcement action including potential food license suspension or revocation may be taken if facility fails to comply or is found to be operating in unsanitary conditions.” It took them 3 more follow-up inspections before they were finally able to produce an inspection with no critical violations on October 22, 2024, and by January 28, 2025 they had an inspection with 5 critical and 8 non-critical violations. In fact, of the 22 inspection reports listed by the Butler County General Health District dating back to 2021, only 6 have produced no critical violations. Mackenzie River Review
I have given this place a few chances over the years. None have particularly impressed me. My most recent visit yesterday means I will not be returning. This location has a severe management issue. Other Mackenzie River locations do not exhibit the same problems. First off, the smell of the bathrooms greeted you in the foyer before you even made it into the restaurant. We were seated quickly and the hostess took our drink order. It was a long while before we saw our waitress. When she did come by to take our order, she let us know that she had two large parties she was waiting on as well. Unfortunately, even after those parties left, she returned only to run our card. Kitchen staff brought our food, and bar staff checked on us once. The food was mediocre at best - the black and blue bites were burned. The chicken on my sandwich was lukewarm.
I had the very unfortunate need to use the restroom while there - the smell in the corridor was quite pungent. Once in the restroom, it was evident they are cleaned rarely, if at all. There was splatter all over the wall, a very bad caulking job trying to seal the urinal to the wall, and the baseboard peeling away from water damage.
The final bit of info I will leave in this review comes from public record - an inspection on July 31, 2024, which found 6 critical and 7 non-critical violations, nearly lost them their food service license after the inspector observed water from the roof leaking on several food contact surfaces, with the inspector noting “To follow-up. Further enforcement action including potential food license suspension or revocation may be taken if facility fails to comply or is found to be operating in unsanitary conditions.” It took them 3 more follow-up inspections before they were finally able to produce an inspection with no critical violations on October 22, 2024, and by January 28, 2025 they had an inspection with 5 critical and 8

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 2

Service: 1

The service was good and nice atmosphere was great.

However the food was not good for the price .

We had pizza and flat bread and nether were impressive.

You can do better.

Parking: No problem parking

Kid-friendliness: Family friendly place

Wheelchair accessibility: Wide entry wheelchair accessible in restaurant

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 3

Service: 5

If I could give this 0 stars I would. It took us 20 minutes to even get a server and we only got one because we had to ask for one. Mind you there were only 4 other tables sat down. We then proceeded to wait another five minutes for them to come over and get us drinks. Then the food weight was another 30 to 45 minutes, which is standard and most restaurants but still. Then they proceeded to bring us out the wrong food and we had to wait another 10 minutes to even get the attention of a server to tell them it was wrong, and then we just asked for To-Go boxes and got the check because they also forgot to ring in one of the food items that we even ordered. And one girl in my group was pretty sure one of the servers was high based on how she was acting and how her eyes looked.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 3

Service: 1

Food was awful very bland, we waited an hour for our food and an hour for our to go desert worst place ever

Food: 1

Service: 1

Walked in , waited 5 min for someone to realize we were standing there . It wasn’t crowded at all, barely anyone in there. Took about an hour to get our food, which was a sandwich, fries and pasta . . Didn’t get any silverware . Never got asked to refill our waters .My fries tasted like fish and was cold. The waitress never came over to ask how everything was .she just dropped the food off and walked away . Only came back with the bill and walked away . Bathrooms were disgusting. My fiancé said that the urinal didn’t work . You could smell pee from the outside doors .Horrible experience. Will not be going back

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Friends, please don’t come here and spend your hard earned money. The restaurant is lovely and in a great location. The service was great. Our waitress was super friendly.

But the food is absolutely disgusting. It’s horrid!!! We got the rod and reel lunch combo and everything was so cold and wet for some reason. My quesadilla was completely soggy and my husbands sandwich was dripping with wet tomato juice. Nothing was edible, except for the Caesar salad. It was ok.

We won’t be back.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 1

Service: 5

I was excited to come here. But when we got there, wasn't busy. All the workers were at the bar watching the Bengal and steelers game. Bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. My marg-rita was drinkable but definitely not worth the 10$ we ordered water with lemons on the side, but the lemons were so dried out, then my margarita had more brown dried out lemons, that we decided to just order the pretzels and cheese and drink our drinks. Our waitress was super nice, and attentive. Poor girl was the only one working. While the other staff members were watching the game, she was mopping floors and making sure we were ok. It was a Saturday night and not busy. Place definitely needs alot of improvement. There shouldn't be 5 staff members sitting while things needed cleaned, fresh lemons could have been cut. And so on. Probably won't be back unless I see good reviews.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 5