MacKenzie River Pizza Grill & Pub

Too bad they were ‘overstaffed’ today with poor service! Literally-​empty plates & servers just walked by or took the single desert order & left empty dinner plates. Desert took 15 minutes! Food was ok-​very slow, tho. People across from us were there 15 minutes before cold green salads were served! Really? This place was not busy at all! Once I counted 4 staff at the hostess check-in…just bs’ing!

Excellent service, the drinks were well made and the hummus was absolutely delicious. I can’t say the same for the entrée. I ordered the fish and chips. It came to the table burnt and extremely dry. I will give this place another shot just because of the hummus.

Update: I actually got a message from the server who picked up my beer with a profuse apology! That’s all I really wanted. Way to go, MacKenzie River, for upping your customer service game! Two additional stars! I’ll give this place another chance. Original post:
I left the restaurant pissed off. That’s not how you expect it to go after having a pretty good meal, a good beer, and reasonable service.
Here’s what did it. I had finished the meal, the plate had been cleared, and the bill presented. I kid you not, as I was filling out the tip amount an employee (not my server) sweeps by the table, picks up my unfinished beer without missing a stride and quickly headed for the kitchen. I never even saw her face. So, I finished the bill, leaving more than a 20% tip, and waited for my server to come by so that she could make it right. I waited. And waited. And waited. Then gave her five more minutes. At that point I’d had enough and scratched out the tip amount substituting it with zeros and a new total. I also left an explanatory note at the bottom of the invoice without any emotion, just the facts. I thought about approaching a manager, but then thought — Nevermind! I left the place never to return.
About that food and beer… really quite satisfying. I had the Rise and Shine (burger with fried egg). The fried jalapenos were excellent! The brown sugar bacon was exquisite. The burger was also quite good. As someone pointed out, the waffle fries are served hot, but the texture suggests they are not fresh. I had the amber ale at the top of the draft menu. Excellent.
MacKenzie River, you screwed this one up. Unilocal and word of mouth are big draws for your business. My company puts 6 different people a night/​every night in the hotel next door. They read Unilocal.They talk. I talk.

Even on a ridiculously busy Saturday night, we were seated in a comfortable booth right away. The servers and hosts were like a well oiled machine– there was a lot of communication and a sense of urgency to meet their guests’ needs, which led to the whole system working quickly and efficiently! We didn’t see any tables near us waiting longer than about ten minutes between drinks-​appetizers-​entrees. The place was PACKED, but that didn’t seem to stall the food from arriving on time! Our waitress was quick and polite. We got the avocado dip, which was well seasoned and arrived piping hot on the skillet it was cooked on. We were happy that it was made fresh. We also ordered the Buffalo Wing Pizza. It was spicy and flavorful, and large enough to take home leftovers. We got our check in a timely manner as well. We will be back for the awesome service and delicious food.

This place was within walking distance from my hotel when I was working in the area. I decided to get take out a few times. The pizza is Great! I love the fact that you can do half and half if you are a indecisive eater like myself at times. Definitely a place that I would go back to.

This place is great! Good atmosphere good food! I’ve came here every night for about two week cause it’s next to my hotel the only thing bad is some servers but if you get Tanna or the bar tender Ryan they are amazing and make it worth while!
Ps the waffle fries are usually cold but good!

The rise and shine burger was amazing! The tomato soup was the best! Good service. We really like this place.

Beer selection is nice. Service was ok as the bartender was friendly but wasn’t attentive. Steak was very dry but no one ever asked me how it was. Waitstaff hung out at front and I could hear them swearing — which I guess I don’t care if they do or not but seemed rather unprofessional.

Good drinks, great food, fun atmosphere. Not a lot of food restaurants in Bismarck, this is one of them. Don’t miss it! Has my first «mule» here!

Decent craft beer selection. The service was good. Pizza we tried was disappointing. The jerk chicken (regular crust) was bland and too doughy. I was expecting way more flavor & spice from a «Jerk Chicken» pizza. The Bistro (thin crust) had prosciutto, blue cheese, sliced pears, and a balsamic glaze. I was pretty excited about this one, but the combo of prosciutto & blue cheese was way too salty. Maybe would have been better on a regular crust? or drizzled with straight up balsamic vinegar instead of the watered down balsamic glaze. The pears seemed over cooked and mealy as well.

The atmosphere, food as well as the service were fantastic! Definitely one of the best in Bismarck.

I ordered the chicken fried steak and it was awful. Way overdone, meat was unchewable. The gravy was tasteless. The corn medley was just plain weird. I am not an old person, but I couldn’t chew the kernels. The only thing good about the place was the décor and the wheat beer.

This week makes my sixth week in Bismarck since May 11. I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants, generally trying to stay away from chains.
MacKenzie River Pizza, Co. intrigued me, but I avoided it for a while because it is a chain. That said, they are not in Cincinnati, my hometown or Hayward, CA, my current home. So tonight I gave them a try.
I walked in. It was cool and it smelled good. I was asked if I wanted to sit at the bar or in the restaurant. I wanted to sit ‘in’ the restaurant, so I was surprised when we walked through a door to get to my table. I was no longer in the restaurant. I was outside… kind of.
I considered whining. I mean, compared to being ‘in’ the restaurant I was immediately aware of how «hot» it was. Understand I was still under a roof and ¾ of the room was enclosed and air conditioned. It wasn’t super hot outside so I kept my mouth shut and had a seat. As it turns out it was very comfortable.
The waitress was a delight! When I admitted this was my first visit she did a great job of explaining the menu. One of the pluses here is the number of options. She did a fantastic job; I appreciated everything she told me. All of her directions/​explanations were useful. I’ll jump ahead just a bit. I knew I would have leftovers and she brought me a box, a separate box for the toppings, which were essentially a salad, and a bag. She was very sweet, helpful, always there to refill my water and yet never intrusive. There are other restaurants in town that should take notes.
And now the food. I ordered a small Clubhouse pizza. And here is the description — Basil chicken, smoky bacon and mozzarella, baked then topped with fresh avocado, sliced tomatoes and chilled romaine lightly tossed with creamy ranch. Yummy, right?
It was pretty much a salad on pizza crust, so the pizza acted as a twist on croutons. That may sound like a negative, but no… it was quite good. The description says «lightly tossed» and I’d say it was just a little heavy on the dressing. It wasn’t swimming in ranch dressing, which is good. I think it would have been even better tossed just a bit more lightly.
There were four thin slices of avocado, one per piece. I’ll admit seeing avocado as an ingredient weighed in on my decision to order the Clubhouse. I think diced avocado spread evenly over the entire pizza would have been better.
Finally… and this is a total afterthought, bacon would have been a great addition. Holy Moly!!! I just read the post of my picture of this pizza, which included an edited version of the menu description of the Clubhouse. It HAS bacon. Needless to say, I didn’t notice. Please, MacKenzie, may I have some more… bacon?
I will say the specialty pizzas seemed unusual to me. The Clubhouse was the only one that really appealed to me, but it was great to know, thanks to my waitress, that I could do ½ and ½ if I desired. Considering I only ate ½ the pizza in the restaurant, splitting the pizza might not have worked for me. That said, if two people want to split a small (or a large), it’s nice to know you can choose two different pizza flavors split on one pizza.
They have a fantastic draft beer menu, but I did not try any. Still, this seems like a decent plus to me.
In California we have California Pizza, which can be amazing. I like MacKenzie River Pizza, Co. I’ll be back in Bismarck a few more times. I might just have to come back.

Food is good, nice atmosphere but can be very busy on weekends, so go during the week if possible.

We stopped here for dinner while passing through on a Saturday night. It was busy, but we were seated right away. It’s really, really loud, so much so that I could barely hear my fanily sitting across from me.
The service was so-​so, our waitress wasn’t overly friendly, but kept drinks full and checked in a couple of times. If you have kids they give them a little cup of fish crackers to tide them over until food arrives.
The food was good and offered a variety besides just pizza. The kids menu had sides of salad, fruit or veggies besides just the traditional french fries. It was vrry reasonably priced. A definite recommend.

Five words: Get The Mackenzie River Pizza. Sooooo good. I only got pizza but there seems to be a variety of menu choices. There are lots of draft beer selections but none I would go back for. The crust could be higher quality.

Excellent pizza! This was our first time here and we tried the Stockman’s Pizza — a meat lovers with steak. It was great! The crust was great, too, nice and soft — not too doughy. My husband had a Black Ghost Oatmeal Stout and really enjoyed it. The décor is fun. I love the photographs on the walls and the bear outside.
The only negative I have is that it was hard to get drink refills. I just happened to be really thirsty so that’s probably why it stuck out but I was without something to drink for quite a while before she came back and it was pretty quiet in there (after 9pm on a Monday night).

I always have an great experience coming here. We also frequent the one in Bozeman as well. Customer service was outstanding. Drinks were never empty and she catered to us very well considering we had a 9 mo baby.
I ordered the veggie pizza and added chicken. It was delish. I don’t have to mention the beers. Great craft beers. I’m always looking for Madison river brewing myself.
All in all. Love this place. Wish it wasn’t an hour and half away.

I can’t say that I was impressed but I can say that I saw some potential.
The good:
— iced tea was cold
— pizza could have been great
— Mud Pie was pretty good
The not so good:
— Pizza came with red onions rather than the roasted red peppers I ordered
— service was SLOW for me but not for the patrons the waitstaff seemed to know
I don’t care for onions on my pizza. I love roasted red peppers. $ 2 off my order does not make up for that. It did, however, fit in with the service I received in general. The tables around me seemed to get pretty good service — while my service was pretty slow and, in my opinion, not very friendly. I’m not sure if it was due to the fact that I wasn’t ordering alcohol or that I wasn’t a regular since the other few tables in the bar area met both requirements.
I stopped in about 4:30pm on a Wednesday and they were not very busy at all. So that certainly wasn’t an excuse. Actually, I’m still kind of confused why the service was bad. All I do know is that I won’t go back — even though I think I would have loved the pizza if it had come with the correct toppings.
Oh well… life is WAY too short to put up with poor service. Especially in towns with dozens of other options.

I would give it a 3.5 if I could. It’s not bad but I would just stick to what I have eaten before. The first time I went I had a pepperoni pizza and it was amazing. I ordered a small pepperoni pizza and it was hot and delicious.
The second time around, I ordered a steak dinner. My steak was not juicy and there was no flavor. It was kinda tough as well. My two sides tasted average.
I really loved the servers. Very friendly and attentive. The server could cleary see I was not enjoying my steak and asked to have the manager comp my dessert which was awesome of her.
Customer service goes a long way with me. I would eat here again.