Alice’s

If I had to use one word to describe Alice’s, the first one that comes to mind would be ‘underwhelmed’…
I went there with high hopes, I had heard good things, & I was excited to have dinner at what was supposed to be one of the best places in Iron River.
First off, as a third generation Italian who lives south of Chicago, I know my Italian food. So, if I’m excited to try an Italian restaurant, you know I’ve heard good things about it. This was the case with Alice’s.
When my wife & I arrived, we were seated quickly & told that there were 2 VERY large parties that were about to order, so there may be a bit of a wait. I appreciated that, and honestly, we weren’t in any hurry. The restaurant is decorated like 90% of your Italian restaurants. It’s very warm, well maintained, and has a great atmosphere. The staff was very friendly, the hostess that greeted us was friendly & our server was prompt, courteous, & did a great job.
Right off the bat, I was disappointed that there are no appetizers on the menu. NONE! Not even a bruschetta or some bon ja culda… NOTHING.
To start, my wife & I both had salads with the house dressing. I will tell you with 100% honestly, that this was the best dinner salad I have ever had. The house dressing is amazing. Absolutely fantastic. I thought if the salad is this good, I can’t wait for the rest!
Then I had a cup of their tomato vegetable soup with chicken. The waitress highly recommended it… I was very unimpressed. It was VERY bland. It looked great & had a lot of vegetables & chicken, but tasted flat. It desperately needed a pinch of salt to pull out the flavors or a dash of pepper to spice it up.
My wife had the lasagna. It was an ENORMOUS serving with several layers of pasta & sauce. It was cooked perfectly, standing up firm without sliding or tipping over. It could be cut & eaten with a knife & fork. The sauce was very plain and really could have used some garlic. (I know garlic is a touchy ingredient for restaurants because everyone’s taste buds are different. But Italian food needs garlic!)
I ordered one of the specials– Spinach & chicken lasagna with a cream sauce… What a disappointment. They dumped so much cream sauce over the pasta that it pretty much killed any flavor the lasagna might have had. The 2 or 3 bites I managed to get that weren’t drowned in the BLAND sauce were ok. But I just never had a chance to really enjoy the dish. I was very disappointed.
Overall, Alice’s was kind of a disappointment. I don’t have anything BAD to say about the place, but there really wasn’t anything that impressed me either. I make better Italian food at home. I loved everything about Alice’s except the food. If I can give them a single piece of advice– Spice it up a bit… Garlic, onions, & basil are your friends. Use them! We may give them another chance in the future, but we’re in no rush to go back.

Love this restaurant! Visit Iron River every summer, and always come to Alice’s for a great dinner. You can’t beat the baked chicken and pork chops, always cooked just right, tender and flavorful. Their pasta is homemade. It come as a side or a main course. For a real treat order the Italian Delight, ravioli, gnocchi and noodles with 1 meatball and 1 italian sausage.
If you have been camping and don’t want to cook one night or on your boat all day Alices’s has great take out too. Service is good and very friendly.

While the atmosphere is so-​so and same with the service, the food, although made from «scratch» is bland and tasteless. Italian food with no zing or pop is not Italian food, it’s American food that’s not as good.
The locals love this place, but the palate in this area is very bland and boring. Being a city boy, I’m a little sad that if I want good food I have to prepare and cook my own because the only places with the pop and zing I associate with good food is in cities with much more diverse populations, so nowhere near here.

Service was very good. Very friendly people! Very cozy setting for the Holidays. Nice decorations. The pasta did not have the flavor we are used to from the Chicagoland area. It was a little bland like the marinara sauce. The meat sauce had more flavor. The wine list is low end to mediocre at best. The Italian sausage was tasty. The shot glasses are very small. The steak was tender and seasoned ok. Would go back.

Oh my sweet Italian heavens.
We have been driving past this place for about 20 years and finally decided «what the heck»? Now I live in a traditionally Italian area in Chicago, so though I’m Irish as Paddy’s Pig, I know my Italian food… this was amazing! Best spaghetti (yes, just regular spaghetti) I’ve ever had as part of a huge and amazing sampler platter… plus the spinach lasagna was like a soufflé. I ate way too much of it trying to determine how these folks made lasagna light and fluffy. I still don’t know but — wow it was good.
Hey kids? New ski trip tradition!

«I bet you can’t get an old fashioned as good down there.» Say that in a classic yooper voice. That may have been the line of the night from my friend’s wife’s cousin. Granted, there were lots of great lines and my experience here is likely influenced by the fun time I had with her family.
I usually make a trip up to the UP and this time I was able to do some different things, and Alice’s was part of that.
My friend’s wife’s family uses Alice’s as a home base for all sorts of dinners and family gatherings. This time I got to be a part of one of said family gatherings. Our small group of 3 got there after my friend’s wife’s family had already imbibed a few drinks, so a quiet evening this wouldn’t be (which btw is more than fine by me as I’m far from a wallflower).
While I was mostly waiting for the entrée, I couldn’t stop munching on the bread sticks. Their onion bread is also insanely dangerous as well.
But, the main reason I was here was because of the entrée. At first, I had a real hard time deciding as many things looked delicious. In the end, I settled on the sampler and I think that was the right decision. The sampler was a bit variable though as I thought the spaghetti was fantastic, the meat ravioli solid, and the gnocchi very good. The house made pasta really was excellent on the whole and I couldn’t get over how good the red sauce was. Seriously, I wanted a jar of the red sauce just for myself as it was sweet and savory at the same time. The meat in the ravioli was a bit on the dry side though and I did think the gnocchi was a little to chewy for me (and I normally like some more substance to my gnocchi). Still, that’s more of a personal thing with the gnocchi and I had no problem destroying it.
I thought the service was excellent too. I felt bad for the waitress a slight bit considering the rowdiness of the group, but I’m very sure she’s handled this group before as she seemed like a vet with them.
Alice’s was a lot of fun. I make a trip up to Iron Mountain once a year, so who knows when I’ll return. But, I certainly will be sure to return. As far as the old fashioned I mentioned at the top, it was tasty, and to have some fun, yes, I can get old fashioneds just as good down here in Chicago as I can in the UP, :).

This place was a great find, and I’d definitely go back when in the area and in the mood for italian. The menu isn’t large, but what they do, they seem to do well! The noodles are made fresh every day!!! Mama Alice’s meatballs were great, and my lady had raviolis in an alfredo-​ish sauce, all excellent! The dinner salad was so-​so, but to be expected… it got point for having some spinach thrown in, and the homemade Italian dressing was good too. Atmosphere was nice, sort of what I think of as a classic Italian… dark, red and black. Pretty big place and we were seated immediately on a pretty busy Sunday night (not much open Sunday nights in those parts!).

Amazing Italian food!!! Homemade pasta, lasagna is to die for!!! Will go back many, many times whenever we are back through town. I only wish it were closer to my hometown so I could go all the time!

OK its the only show in town I get draged to the palce and wow the foods not bad had a steak, ok not great but ok, the pasta is what they are known for kind of Italian thing goin on, and wow more than a grizzily can eat so I am now hooked on Alices!

This place is better than awesome. We arrived fifteen minutes before closing and were treated as if we could stay as long as we wanted. I had the lasagna with freshly made noodles that day. It was melt in your mouth good and the sauce was something that should be bottled and sold world-​wide. A couple of days later I had to admit to my mom that I had some lasgana that was better than hers — she took it OK and now wants to get up to Iron River to taste it for herself. It only took one meal to become a fan of Alice’s. I can hardly wait to try each entre on the menu because I know each one will be great. See you next time we are in Iron River.

This place is awesome! My favorite is the Chicken-​Spinach Ravioli with the Creamy Butter Garlic sauce paired with the best Pork Chop you will ever eat! If I stop in on a Saturday, I have the BBQ Ribs. They are delicious! Once in a while I have to change things up and have the bone-​in Ribeye. Simply put, the best! I also have to mention the garlic bread sticks … Made fresh daily and are so good. They are baked … Not froed! The atmosphere and decore are so comforting and bering greeted by the owners says a lot. I highly recommend Alice’s to everyone! If you are lucky, you will dine here when Jill has made some of her awesome chocolate chip cookies!

Needless to say, I was very under impressed. I for-​went dinner at Zippidy-Duda’s, a tried and true favorite of mine, for Alice’s because 1) I clearly like trying new places and 2) Unilocalers gave it a 4.5 average from 5 reviews. I unfortunately did not have a 5-​start experience.
As with many of my reviews, I begin reviewing/​taking notes of places on the spot via the iPhone Unilocal app (then come back to edit before posting), so take note that the bad experience at the end did not cloud my notes from earlier.
From the outside, driving West down Adams, you’ll see Alice’s from 4^th and Adams, and at first you might think it looks closed. But then you drive past the parking lot and you realize how hopping it really is. «This place must be really good,» I had beamed excitedly to Chad.
The décor is nice with a completely red and black theme, and romantic lighting. Dark red walls, black table clothes, red and black window curtains, and red chairs with black brims. Reminds me a lot of Minneapolis’ «Hell’s Kitchen» minus the live music and artsy art. The art here is a mix of historical portraits and gaudy signs.
First up on the dinner docket was the bread basket, which included what tasted like microwaved buns and a soggy onion bread thing; though the fried garlic breadsticks (think cookie-​like sticks) were quite tasty. Basket was served with cold butter — how do you spread it? And the menu let you know that it’s $ 1.50 for another basket.
On my first visits to any establishment, I go with my tried and true method of asking our waitress for menu selections (even if the menu was only two pages). She suggested the Italian’s Delight, and that it was big enough to share. So we did. We were delightfully surprised when both of us got the option of a soup or salad. We took both.
The soup was a chicken lemon grass thing… the soup itself was decent but the noodles were weak and the chicken looked like spam and tasted odd. The salad was essentially lettuce and sesame nuts, with one slice of cucumber, one slice of a wedge of tomato, and a slice of beet. I’m pretty sure when we asked what was in the salad, she had used the plural versions of each vegetable.
Our dinner, the Italian Delight, was a triad of gnocchi, ravioli, and noodles in a red sauce with one meatball and one large italian sausage. I’m seeing a theme of one here; though in this case it wasn’t a problem as the protein were a healthy portion.
A few bites in, I decided the gnocchi was the best, followed by noodles and last, the ravioli, which tasted gritty like it was not quite properly re-​warmed.
Then Chad made a face and pulled out a white hair from his mouth after the first bite of ravioli. We looked at each other, then at our own heads… Chad’s hair is brown and I’ve got black hair — it wasn’t ours.
We flagged down the lady in charge, who didn’t say much besides take the plate to the kitchen. A few minutes later, our waitress came and asked if I wanted to box my portions, to which I responded with NO (duh?), and she left us our bill.
In response to the hair, we got $ 5 off the $ 18 dish. $ 5? Really? We took two bites… Am I asking too much for expecting that portion to be comped? Or at least an apology? I would have expected, in the very least, to have meal replaced, or better, have it comped, and at most, the entire bill comped (the only other item we had was a $ 6.50 mushroom appetizer). On top of this, there was apparently a plate split of $ 4.75 (entirely unbeknownst to us… and I’m pretty sure was not on the menu). So much for being excited that Chad and I both got a starter plate.
Overall, the experience was poor, from the food itself to the service. I was throughly disappointed. Did I mention our water glasses weren’t even kept full?

Alice’s is the first stop for all of us when we get to Iron Rvier for our family reunion. After traveling from downstate and Chicago, everyone looks forward to a big, homemade meal at Alice’s. The lasagna and gnocci are the best! The meatballs are amazeballs. Of course, the Italian delight will give you three wonderful options on one plate. Drinks are also great. If you are even remotely close to this place, you have got to stop!

The owner met us at the door, and took us to the table of our choice. The service was excellent, as was the food. The chicken/​spinach ravioli special was outstanding. The grilled shrimp were also excellent — six giant tender shrimp. Wine list is short but good, desserts are wonderful. We’ll be back!

Alice’s is awesome! Great meals can be had here, with very relaxed dining atmosphere. The wine selection is also a good one.

Two of us had fettucini, one lasagna, and one pork chop. Pasta made fresh daily. Pork chop was a little tough. Stick with the home made pasta. We would come here again.

The minute the clouds rolled by and sprinkles hit the air at our campsite, my lady and myself both knew we would be dining indoors. We had heard of Alice’s from many people and decided to make the trip to Iron River and check it out.
Alice’s is truly one of those classic Northwoods supper clubs with Italian flare. You nearly fall into a seizure as you walk in and are bombarded by the immensely red… well. EVERYTHING! The walls, carpet, bar, tables… it’s all red. Pictures of Alice’s grandson’s decked out in basketball attire and graduation uniforms cover the walls and table nearest the bar. I knew we were in for a treat.
The menu states all pasta’s are handmade daily. We both immediately knew we had to have the pasta. I ordered the «noodles» with meatballs. Let’s get something straight, you can’t fake something like fresh pasta and Alice’s is definitely the real deal! A huge pile of big, thick egg noodles arrived with two well-​sized meatballs. The pasta was rich and flavorful. The sauce was San Marzano-​based with a bright color and tart, zippy acidity. The meatballs were fantastic and somewhat light in texture but rich in flavor. As well, all pastas come with soup/​salad and fresh bread. Along with my pasta, I also had several Whiskey Manhattans, which were perfectly made… even being a little stiff!!!
We got the bill and were nearly floored…$ 40 for two people, including drinks! This is the kind of place that I only dream of frequently here in Chicago! It’s really tough to find a spot to get fresh pasta without blowing your paycheck. Every time I get the craving for fresh pasta, I might actually contemplate getting in the car and heading back to Iron RIver! Fantasmic.

There we were, in the hotel lobby, all hungry and thirsty after a hard day of fantastic scuba diving at Fortune Pond. Its all rainy outside, and windy, and cold, and we’re wondering «Where do we go for a good dinner and drinks?» Why… Alice’s restaurant, of course. This ain’t your Arlo’s Alice though. Alice was the original proprietor of what is now a popular restaurant in Iron River, Michigan, up there in the Upper Peninsula. The menu is full of tempting Italian dishes, chicken dishes, and steaks. Lots of comfort food on the menu. We opted all around for the NY Strip medium rare, and everyone was satisfied. I ordered mine with fries and a salad, and it was all together quite a filling meal, accompanied by a vodka tonic with attitude. Drinks with dinner were a reasonable 3.50, and my whole dinner was under $ 25, which might sound a bit pricey but I thought it was pretty decent for a nice big thick NY strip steak done just right.
The décor deserves a mention too. Walls are all in red, and there’s icicle lights and holly trimming all over. Looks very Christmasy, even in September. Hostess and waitress were very friendly and service overall was very good. Its on the list for the next road trip to the UP.