Harbor View Cafe

Took a drive Saturday to one of our favorite restaurants in the area!. We go here a couple times a year to enjoy both the food and the search for Eagles. Once again we observed around 5 Eagles soaring above the Mississippi's main channel and its backwaters and at the Harbor View Cafe we were greeted by a friendly staff and feasted on Grilled pork tenderloin and Chicken breast pan fried with roasted garlic chipotle sauce. OMG!! Both dishes were excellent and plentiful. We stopped short of full so we could share a piece of Georgia Walnut Pie with Ice Cream on top.
We look forward to numerous repeat sojourns here this summer!!

People may say Harbor View is a hidden gem on one of the most scenic roadways in Wisconsin. In reality it's not hidden at all as soon as the doors open the waitlist starts. They move that line quickly and the food is so worth the wait. Daily menus are posted each day on Facebook to assure the highest quality. Can't wait to go back.

Beautiful view!!! Beautiful menu, nice servers and staff. World class restaurant is a beautiful setting.

This used to be a wonderful autumn destination dining place twenty years ago, now it is a drive by. What is up not putting their menu on the website and referring folks to see the "chalkboard menu" on Facebook? This is super annoying and a waste of time and effort. It's a "chalkboard" not a walk on the moon. Anyway, I guess given the decline in the quality and taste of the food it really doesn't matter where they display their menu.

We walked by the tables outside of the Harbor View Cafe on our way to a different restaurant and a couple was sharing a decadent looking piece of carrot of cake. Yum! When we got to our destination and asked to be seated outside they said the deck was closed. So, we left and went back to the Harbor to eat outside. My husband and I shared the chicken breast in champagne grapes on linguine. Wow! Who would have thought warm, tiny grapes would be so delicious in champagne sauce with chicken?! such a large portion that even after splitting the meal we had left overs to take home. Desert? Of course! Carrot cake!
We did have to order our food to go to eat outside but the waitress, who has been working there for 20+ years, brought our food to us.
Highly recommend!

I had been to the Harbor View Café several times before.

But this time was a disappointment. I will give readers here a bit of advice: the menu is on a chalk board. However it is really incomplete in describing the dishes. Ask how the entre is prepared and what are the sides / vegetables - which are not mentioned.

Today I ordered a "chicken breast with garlic and chipotle sauce". What I got was a breaded, deep fried chicken breast (if I wanted that, I could have gone to Chick-Filet.) But the most strange: it was covered with at least 20 roasted garlic cloves. Pieces of the fettuccine were 'stuck together and hard' - this happens when you don't give the noodles a stir or two.

The service is good. It's a nice quaint café, but it's slipped from previous visits.

Wow the food quality has gone downhill
In the past few years.
Friendly, people the food value was terrible.
The Halibut was the most expensive thing on the menu and was just bad.
No wait on a Sunday afternoon should have been a warning.
The drinks and great view made up for some of the experience.

It doesn't even deserve one star. Took my parents both which had dementia for a drive today. Thought we'd stop and eat there. My father got a slice of pie from a place and Stockholm was worried it was going to melt because it was sour cream and raisin brought it in to keep it cool they got all in an uproar, which is odd because I've managed restaurants and most restaurants have no problem with you bringing in something as long as you didn't bake it nor was he going to eat it there. So I put it in my purse. I was then told I couldn't even have it in my purse. Then my mother wanted a burger which they don't have so we decided to leave the owner, then followed me out and accosted me had her finger in my face and asked me if I was rude to her weight staff I was not rude. I just didn't understand why I couldn't have pie in my purse, my personal belongings for my father, who has dementia and my mother as well. I asked her to please stop because both of my parents have dementia. She wouldn't stop kept in my face. Total bitch would never eat there would never recommend it have never been treated so poorly in my life She should be embarrassed as a business owner. I have never in my life I have managed restaurants all my life and never ever have I treated anyone that way or would I ever

***Please note this would be a 4.5 if not for the bartender***

This restaurant has come highly recommended by friends with good taste. As we were bumming around river towns on a glorious October day with no real time schedule, we decided to put our names on the dinner waiting list and were told an hour plus wait. No worries! At that time, the hostess indicated that should seats open up at the bar, we were welcome to eat there.

We wandered around Pepin for an hour, circling back to see two seats open at the bar. Next to us, a couple was enjoying lasagna. When we inquired with the shirt-haired, stocky, breast-tattooed bartender about ordering, she raised her voice and melted down.

"WHO told you you could eat here? You can't! We close at five and I have ALL THIS to clean! I am not serving food here! Drinks only! I'm out at five!" She was clearly very concerned about getting out of there promptly, and let us know in no uncertain terms that we were cutting into her evening gaming time. Perhaps there was a Pokémon raid scheduled she was potentially going to miss out on.

Others at the bar, and at least one coworker, seemed embarrassed by her behavior. We promptly got up from the bar and went back outside to wait for our table, which was ready a few minutes later.

Our server, Carissa, was lovely, donning funky earrings and still smiling after her beautiful & busy fall day serving hungry Citiots like us. The menu is unique, especially for small-town Sconni, and you'll find something new to try. We enjoyed our dinners, a Hawaiian Opakapaka and a MASSIVE portion of stuffed mushrooms with linguine. We took desserts to go, and the buttercream pie was particularly sublime. Prices are definitely on the high side, but the place, and Pepin businesses in general, is/are aimed at a metros-with-money crowd.

My husband and I have both spent years on the other side of the bar, and we have ZERO tolerance for bad service. And, as it were, the bitchy bartender was still there when we left an hour plus later - and, in fact, they continued seating patrons right up until 6, so she clearly missed her D & D date. There is absolutely no reason to EVER let a customer know they are interfering with your evening plans. The bartender's craptastic, "me me me" attitude colored what would have been a positive experience at Harbor View. If help were easier to find, she should be fired. It's not easy to hire right now, so they must be scraping the bottom of the bartender barrel. Had this woman been my employee back when I ran a restaurant, she'd be out the door that very day.

So - good food, nice atmosphere, great waitress, horrible, rude bartender. She doesn't have the service bent to even make the cut at Wal-Mart.

Cute restaurant with friendly service! The dishes are quite large with good flavors. If your looking for a place thats not "bar food" check it out. We would come back Forsure!