Bavarian Inn Restaurant

I've been coming to Frankenmuth with my parents since I was a kid. Love the Bavarian theme. Love the quality and attention to detail that they take throughout the town. Today we were here for SnowFest into the Bavarian Inn restaurant for dinner at 4:30 PM. The place was packed, which is a great sign. Families eating at tables around us were enjoying their meals as much as we were. We love the ultimate dinner package at $35.99. Comes with everything you can imagine, including leftovers! The beef, pork, and famous chicken were all fantastic! I have my favorites among the numerous side dishes that are included, such as the cranberry sauce, and the mashed potatoes with gravy.

Hannah, our server was the best! Super personable, ultra friendly, and didn't rush us.

It was a leisurely long dinner lasting about two hours, which is exactly what we were looking for. We headed out to the fireworks afterward, and had a great evening.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Actually, it's more like 3.5 stars. We decided to try Bavarian Inn instead of Zehnder's for dinner. Just to try something different. We kind of thought "it'll be basically the same thing". But it's not.

Yeah, it's a chicken dinner. $35+ per person with White Meat Only.

The explanation we received is that Bavarian Inn is "German Style" and Zehnders is more "American Style"

The concept is the same, but... just a little less polished, let's say.

Even the building itself felt like it had a little less ambiance.

The chicken is tasty, but... we missed the crispy skin. It's dang good chicken, for sure. I would definitely eat that chicken again.

The stuffing was super strong with a bang of sage, thyme and salt.

The Buttered Noodles were... less buttery, more oily, tasted of Ritz crackers strongly.

All the sides were basically good.

In no way was it a bad meal. It just wasn't at the same level of Zehnders meal, in my personal opinion. I can definitely see why some folks prefer one or the other.

This is the type of restaurant where you pay for the famous tourist hype.

The food was not good. Chicken was a little sweet but nothing too amazing. You're served sandwich bread to start and again, nothing special. The sides were just okay. Homemade pickles were decent and potatoes were okay.

Service was good and the server got us plenty of drink refills and was very kind.

For not good food, our total for 2 people was around $100. That is just insane! I will not be back next time I'm in town.

I must begin with saying I have been to the Bavarian Inn Restaurant several times because of its wonderful array of food. This time I was not so happy. The food simply lacked the pizazz it used to have. The chicken lacked taste and simply tasted like it was boiled chicken.

The side dishes were their typical standard and very good tasting sides.
The shocker was the price. How many people on the planet can eat $30 worth of chicken? Before you venture to the Bavarian Inn Restaurant or Zehnders across the road, consider your wallet and ask yourself if it is truly worth the price. It's too bad the two restaurants have priced themself so high and I believe it is truly affecting the amount of people going here.

I like to compare this fine restaurant with the Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, IN, just a short drive away. You can get the same quality food either as Family Style, individual meals, or buffet for a lot less.

Stopped by during the snow festival going on and they got us in right away for a table of 4. I normally go to Zehnders for the chicken dinner but they looked pretty busy and decided to check them out for once. The atmosphere was awesome with the German feel everywhere and the outfits the staff wore. Unfortunately our waitress was completely under the influence and noticed it right from the beginning. Didn't have most of our silverware drinks she just kept forgetting items and things. Needed something and she was no where to be found for 20 minutes. Otherwise the food was absolutely delicious, I couldn't really compare since I haven't had Zehnders in a long time either but the pasta salad was absolutely delicious and I loved the cranberry sauce I brought it home for breakfast in the morning. Place was clean also.

3.5 stars! Haven't been here in 40 years, and it hasn't changed a bit! The male servers in lederhosen, the female severs in "Heidi" inspired dresses. It's like time has stopped. Excellent service as always. I dont think the menu has changed much in 40 years either. We went with Bavarian feast, which comes with an array of appetizers like chicken noodle soup, butter noodles, fried potato cheese puffs, white bean salad. The meats ate ham, roast beef, pork schnitzel, and sausage. Fried chicken is also included and is what these places are most famous for. Honestly, next time I would just stick with the fried chicken dinner (or maybe fried chicken dinner +1 meat option) which gets you all the aforementioned sides as I didn't think most of the meats were as good as the fried chicken which has a nicely season very thin crust. These are all served family style and priced per person. The nostalgia and kitsch value is probably the biggest draw for this place as well as the other fried chicken dinner haus Zehnder's across the street.

We've been coming to Bavarian Inn for years. Since COVID, we've come less frequently but still try making it at least 1-2x/year. The food is still great - we especially love the buttered noodles, soup, salads, chicken, and the jam with the bread. The ice cream at the end of the family style dinner is always great. The service we had yesterday was good - no complaints! What we've noticed over the last few visits is that the prices on the family style have gone up considerably ($9 per kid, which honestly is unfortunate when my son, 3, only ate bread and ice cream. $31/adult). Also, we've noticed they aren't as busy as they once were. You used to HAVE to make a reservation or you were waiting. On a Sunday at 5:00pm, there was immediate seating. However, we love that you can make a reservation online instead of having to call. Huge positive in our opinion!

Little Bavaria here? The interior has a definite hint of Bavaria, I suppose. The waitstaff are all wearing traditional Bavarian garment. The men are sporting their leiderhosen.

Kegan is waiting on us today.

I can't say I am a huge fan of German food as a whole and never ate much of it when I worked in Germany either.

My FIL picked this place out of all of the food options in Frankenmuth, so that happened to be why we ended up here.

I can't say anything on the menu appealed to me, it all looked so bland and boring and rather empty carbs, except the steamed veggies. I settled on eating the meat only of the fried chicken and the white fish with steamed vegetables. My FIL got the , my FIL's friend ordered the and my SIL ordered the .

Our waiter's name is , she seemed nice and took care of us today.

Ordered a cheese burger, hunter's schnitzel, chicken schnitzel or Rueben with spicy chicken, chicken salad croissant and sauerkraut, blaukraut, Gruyère dip with bread bites and the pickle chips with ranch too. $93.52 for half of the bill.

The stollen bread and white bread slices are out, basic and filler food.

They brew their own root beer, it's sweet and similar to IBC somewhat.

There's music in the background, it's an organist, chilled.

The pickle fries aren't too bad, the Gruyère dip is okay. The stollen bread is okay, white bread too.

Found a piece of bone in my chicken salad. I let Kegan know. She said it's all freshly made and the chicken is ground up.

The Rueben with the chicken was so, no thousand or dressing and the chicken was super dry. I do like the Rueben with the pumpernickel.

The croissant was dry, not buttery or flaky at all and the chicken salad had a 2 inch bone in it. Fun.

The cheese ball was not what I was expecting at all.

The blaukraut is cooked with bacon and is super sweet.

The burger looked like charcoal sliders. Nothing like a blackened burger.

My FIL liked his Hunter's schnitzel and my FIL's friend liked her chicken schnitzel well enough.

Try the Bavarian Inn for the experience. The food is average, nothing really special or amazing. The building itself is really cool, it's huge inside, there's a bakery and gift shop inside the building. The service was good. Be prepared for a ton of food if you order one of the dinners. It was so much food it seemed impossible to eat. The best from what I tried- bean salad, sauerkraut, potato puffs, German potato salad, buttered noodles, chicken schnitzel, all really good. Not so good was the chicken soup (basically some noodles in broth), and the pasta salad which was weird and had chicken in it. You're supposed to get bread and they forgot to give us that but we didn't even ask for it because we had so much food. You get cute little ice cream cups for dessert included with the dinners. Not many vegetarian options here but a fun overall experience to try once.

We've visited three different occasions, but we're only able to eat here twice. Sometimes in the summer their wait can be astronomical (2 hours+). Since then we are sure to make a reservation as soon as we make plans to visit Frankenmuth.

The Inn is large and therefore loud. All the staff wear traditional costumes, and everytime we have visited the service has been excellent. Both times we've opted for the family style meal, and it's a very fun experience. They just keep bringing food!

I would absolutely return.