Michael’s Restaurant & Lounge

Michael’s is a comfortable restaurant with a casual feel. The prime rib, pasta, and seafood dishes are very good. The best thing about this place is your soup or salad, side and vegetable are included in the very affordable price of your dinner. Try the French onion soup!

We tried dinner here once when we moved to the area. Most of the other reviews have it correct so I will simply say that while my grandmother might have taken me to a place like this, I would never take my Grandmother here. No stars from me. Zero! But Unilocal needs one so there it is.

DON’T. Just DON’T. I am so disappointed in Michael’s. Maybe at one time, the food was palatable, but that is no longer the case. I just want to save anyone else from wasting their time, money and appetite. Like many other reviewers, I noticed how empty the place was, it was no coincidence. An empty restaurant on a Saturday evening is a huge sign. I hate to give it 1 star, because it truly should be zero. I can’t think of anything positive to say which is shamful.

This place is awful. The most awful food and the prices for the quality are terrible. My husband and I eat out often and I enjoy good food. I will pay good money for a good meal. However this place failed. The waitress was very nice but the food hmmm the food was not worth a penny. Our bill was around 60 $ and this was the worst 60 $ I’ve ever spent. The food was clearly not fresh and sides tasted like they came from a can. The steak and fish was over cooked and tasteless. Not mention the bread was stale. Never going back.

My grandmother brought my family here for my parents 25^th Anniversary. I made the mistake of Unilocaling this place the morning we were going. I cringed with the low score and prayed for the best. With this knowledge, I ordered safe all night, and I had a decent meal. My family did not, and I got to see first hand many of the complaints highlighted. The first warning sign should have been that on a Saturday night, this place was empty.
For the record, we did not have trouble with the cigarette smoke in the non-​smoking banquet room. But I don’t think anyone was smoking much so take it with a grain of salt.
The family all ordered coffee, and I started with a Cosmopolitan. The waitress was great about the coffee refills and water refills. The cosmopolitan was a joke. First of all, it was the smallest drink I have ever seen, and it was so practically all cranberry juice. At $ 7, I was over it.
Then, a basket of bread came out. The bread was pretty good. There was a good variety and some unique things in the basket.
Michael’s one highlight is the number of sides you get with a meal. Our meals included soup or salad, potato, and a vegetable. Just like grandma would make. However, the soup was not the quality of grandma’s. We all had chicken dumpling soup. 3 little dumplings with a debatable about being homemade soup. Not too impressed. Another table got the salads, and the salads looked sad.
Meals:
Prime Rib– As my mother so deeply said, «For being a special, you would think they would know how to cut and cook this.» It was mostly fat and apparently pretty awful. I actually think my mother threw it away when we got home. My grandmother handed the waitress back the plate and asked her to dump out the excess sauce because it was mostly that.
Veal Parm– I played it safe and mostly won. Two decent sized pieces of veal covered in cheese. Safe choice.
Crab Stuffed Shrimp– For being over $ 25 you would THINK Michael’s used real crab. Nope. These things were stuffed with filler and the portion was tiny. Not amused.
The sides, however, were pretty good. The twice baked potatoes were excellent and the fried zucchini was a score. I would just order the sides next time.
We passed over on dessert fearing for more disappointment. The final bill was right around $ 100.
The moral of the story? Michael’s recipes are ok, but the food prices are simply not acceptable. I can say honestly that the, «Meh. I’ve experienced better.» rating is completely accurate.

How anyone has given this place more than one star is ludicrous to me. I have been to this restaurant many times as my husbands Grandmother lives near it and always wants to go here. NOTHING about Michaels is good. The service is always slow (we’re talking 45 minutes to place an order and a drink that is never refilled), the food is mediocre at best, and the whole restaurant stinks to high heaven of cigarette smoke. Last weekend I went there for dinner with the family, probably my 15^th visit to Michaels. I came out smelling like an ash tray. My hair and my clothes reeked. Did I mention I was in the non-​smoking section??? I don’t appreciate this, especially considering I had my 18 month old with me. The previous time I was there, everyone’s food came out at different times and my chicken Romano (when it finally arrived) was full of gristle and overcooked. My advice: SKIP MICHAEL’S!

Light on atmosphere, serious about service. Michael’s is a paradoxical mismatch of high and low end dining.
Let me give you the good news first: Incredibly friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and attentive staff. Large menu with lots of tasty choices. Generous, well prepared portions and reasonable value. Healthy options and some imaginatively indulgent ones (Crispy bacon wrapped liver anyone?)
Now the bad: Ambiance; we were the only one’s in the non smoking section, which was hit with 2^nd hand smoke wafting over from the lounge side. Their was an office attached to our dining area, only separated by fabric hanging down from the ceiling so we heard lots of loud business phone calls. The kitchen was also extremely loud, and even though we were sitting in the furthest possible point away from it, the banging and shouting emanating from it was distracting. Last, there was a very bright fluorescent bulb affixed against a wall directly at the guest’s eye level. It was placed above a side table to help the staff write notes, but it was blinding to look directly at, which was unfortunate as it was uncovered and placed immediately in front of me.
Heavy on service and food, but light enough on overall atmosphere to still make for a sub-​par experience. If it was a casual pizza shop or deli I would expect the noise and look, but with $ 20-​$ 30 entrees, Michael’s creates higher expectations of a fine dining experience than they live up to.

I never knew this restaurant existed until Sal G. mentioned it in the Unilocal Pittsburgh forums as a place that was open for Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh. From there, I looked up a review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s mystery diner Munch…
Yeah, this is one of those old-​time establishments your 50−60-ish parents or grandparents might like more than you, and I did too for the most part. It reminds me of the type of restaurant where, as a child, I’d only come to after a wedding or funeral. The menu is simple with seafood, pork, beef, veal, poultry, and pasta dishes rounding it out; it’s a little American trad, a little Italian. The lunch menu is just a scaled down version of the dinner menu with some sandwiches and burgers. A pizza, hoagies, and wings joint this isn’t.
Lady Kay wasn’t hungry (ya never know with her), so she just got a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream.
Me? I was here on a mission, so eat up I did.
First they brought out a nice breadbasket full of manner of sticks with herbs and seeds and spices stuck to ‘em, but what really stood out were these… chips?
I ask the waitress, «What are these?»
«I think they’re fried dough. They won’t tell me,» she replies, giggling a little.
Yup, she was right, and they were a dandy partner for something I can’t remember ever having before: French Onion Soup. Michael’s calls it Crock Of Onion Soup Baked with Cheese, the cheese being provolone.
Now I can see why someone went nutters over this on Food Network’s «Best Thing I Ever Ate,» and of course, you get that signature stretchy cheese cap that is baked atop the crock, but the soup itself had a brackish flavor, and the onions were cooked into savory darkness. It was like looking into a cauldron of things I’d like to pour onto a steak sandwich. In fact, dunking the breadsticks into the broth was akin to a French Dip without the meat.
For my entrée, I got the Baked Crab Imperial, which would bring me to my only complaint.
The portion was so small, I felt cheated, especially since it was 20 bucks! After all, it was just a casserole-​type thing that came in a ramequin.
Mind you, it was very good. The last time I had crabmeat imperial was at the awful Baltimore House in Pleasant Hills (it’s been a few years, so no review until I go back, which may be never), and it was surprisingly a rare highlight. BH’s was creamy like a warm tuna salad. Michael’s is again, more like a small casserole, with buttery breading and plump, sweet jumbo lump crabmeat. I couldn’t complain about the flavor, but I would have liked a bit more for what I paid. Then again, I wasn’t ravenous last night, but still, $ 20???
The main course came with two sides. The «Pittsburgh Potatoes» were neato and were similar to an Au Gratin with cheddar, onions, and hot peppers. The other side was fried zucchini, and my only fault (and a miniscule one at that) was that they were sliced in medallion fashion. They got the job done in the crispy-​tasty department, though.
All of their pies and cakes are made in-​house, so I had to go for their Chocolate Cake with White Icing, and man was it bakery-​caliber. The cake itself was moist and thick like a swamp of cocoa, and the icing was a refreshingly light buttercream. If I could, I’d get a whole cake as it was a very nice way to end dinner.
Michael’s just bleeds a charm 5 decades old, one that would taste like fine wine if it were drinkable. The dining room is immaculate, and the staff are all as friendly as can be. When we strolled in, we were warmly greeted by the bartender (and owner?) and sent on our way by him as we left.
«You kids drive safely now.»
Some adjectives to describe Michael’s: Simplicity, Timelessness, Class.
But methinks I shoulda got the Prime Rib instead. There will be a next time, and it won’t be when someone gets hitched or dies either.