Four Winds Casino
New Buffalo, MI 49117 (866) 494-6371
- Good for Kids: No
10 Reviews for Four Winds Casino
This place is worth going for the buffet alone. We're not much gamblers but there is a great variety of games. One day, we'll be back to try the dinner buffet.
Finally some type of entertainment in New Buffalo! Close a bowling alley and get a casino! lol! (note: they weren't related events). After all the disagreements that the building of the casino caused I think it is a great addition to the middle of nowhere.
The Buffet (that's what they named it, original huh?) is a tad overpriced but hands-down the best in Southwest Michigan. Unfortunately, that was the only restaurant I was able to try, multiple times. I had to keep going back for the freshly made bananas foster! Yumm! Oh, and there is a Starbucks, the only one to get your fix in something like a 20 mile radius!!
The casino is overall much nicer than I expected it to be. The decor consists of a lot of wood and marble-good stuff. There are plenty of bars and even live entertainment. It's SOMEWHERE to go if you're stuck in or around New Buffalo.
Plus, I adore their billboards: "Where Mother Nature Meets Lady Luck" lol!
This place was pretty amazing!! Especially compared to anything in this area, it was beautiful. You drive up a winding road for about 3-5 minutes before getting to your destination which from the outside looks amazing! And the inside is just as nice. There are I think three different restaurants, a Starbucks and a few little shops to browse if you aren't into gambling like my sister and I. The guys decided to hit up the casino which was very large and had a TON of games! It was very clean and the people were friendly, but it was just a bit too smoky for my liking...we realized how spoiled we are here in IL with the smoking ban!
We ate at the buffet for lunch on Saturday and it was only $14.00, which I thought was a steal when I saw the selection an size of the place! They had everything you could ever want! Pasta made to order, salads, Chinese, Mexican, Southern, BBQ, Breakfast, Grilled, Soup, and DESSERTS! The standouts of the food for me were the hush puppies, fried chicken, pot roast, grilled Polish sausage, and the BBQ brisket. And the desserts, the best thing was the vanilla bean cheesecake! It was delicious...and there were about 29 things that we didn't even try! So I am guessing that there were some other winners in there, as well. Definitely worth a try!!
We will definitely be looking into staying here when we decide to venture out to New Buffalo again...hopefully the room rates will go down a bit at that time! (This time it was $299 a night, and I thought that was a bit pricey!)
Another place that is worth the trip from Chicago!
This place sucks. All of you are just making Chief Takes-a-lot richer.
Our experience this weekend with Copper Rock was appalling at best. We made reservations 2 weeks ahead to celebrate my 30th birthday. Called 1 week out and confirmed. 6 of us drove 3 hours round trip only to be told by Miguel that there was no record of our reservation, and there was no way he could accommodate us (the restaurant behind him was 60% empty at that time). My wife and I frequently travel to spend top dollar for top cuisine. There is no level of culinary excellence that can make Miguel's behavior acceptable. Our experience with what they call management can be described as rude, unaccommodating, and even unapologetic. A seat in the bar wasn't even offered. We asked for a manager and was told we were already speaking with the manager. I can't believe this is the type of management hired to run Four Wind's top establishment. He basically explained to us that the priority was to the high rollers holding a players card, but we were welcome to come back in a few hours for a time slot that was less "prime".
No amount of apologizing by Four Winds will bring us back to this place, thanks to Miguel. Management shouldn't even be bussing tables with this sense of customer service.
Willam's review is dead on. What's up with the smoke in this place!? It's a new, very clean casino. And they can deal with the smoke with whatever magical technology some casino in Vegas has? It really needs some help. And yes, the bathrooms are tough to find. Didn't spend too long here so can't review it too well. The restaurants all looked like they were pretty nice from the outside, and the place has a pretty decent looking poker room. It's definitely a good midwest casino.
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As far as the midwest casino's go, I'd have to say I love this one most:
Bigger than the boats, Pretty setting, Brand Spankin New.
As a smoker - I have to say I noticed the awesome filtration they have, I didnt feel like i was in the smoker lounge in Vegas Airport. Most of their decoration is american-indian flavored along with the very light timbers everywhere.
We had party of 6 in the restaurant and they had a sweet 14oz prime rib for 9.00. It really was a fine piece of $9.00 meat. I highly suggest trecking the 20 more minutes past Michigan City to say YESSSSSSSS Michigan in this awesome new addition to Southwest Michigan.
Kudos to New Buffalo, Thanks for letting us not have to go over the state line on Saturday nites to stick $20 each into the slots.
The restuarant serves prime rib for $9, and the $50 steaks at copper rock werent really worth that much money...
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The best casino I've been to in the midwest... (perhaps except for the brand new MGM Grand in Detroit which isn't exactly Midwest anyway).
Compared to what you find in Indiana, this place is huge.... It's not a riverboat, it's a real casino.
Upon my travel there I wasn't sure if I'd like it... They didn't have any mention of having roulette on their web site, though they mentioned a number of other table games.
When I showed up, not only did they have roulette, but they also had automated roulette. SCORE ! ! ! I seriously love roulette--it's my game. I love electronic roulette even more. It's electronic only in the sense of the betting/payouts are done by the computer, the wheel is still spun just like any other table. (Though I insist a little man always sits underneath the wheels at these tables rigging the odds, since the computer knows all!)... I managed to find a bug in their minimums--the table was supposed to be $5 min for outside bets, $5 min for inside. But if you bet $5 on the outside, you could then bet anything (50 cents even) on the inside. Stupidly I pointed this out to them, since they were just as confused as to why it allowed it... Their automated roulette is a tad slower than others I've played since the dealer still takes the payment in and at the end of your play cashes you out with chips ... (others elsewhere do *everything* for payments on the computer). Also, at pretty much any other automated roulette I've ever played, the minimums were much lower than at other table games ($1 min is fairly normal at electronic roulette). There were always several people standing by the roulette wheel (dealer, pit boss, someone else) and they were constantly blocking view of the wheel, which is a bit annoying though it was also on a video monitor. As far as I know they're the first and only casino in the midwest to have automated roulette, so major major props for that!
We made the mistake of going there on a nice Saturday afternoon. Though it's so far I don't really see going there on a weeknight necessarily... (though on the way back, we were downtown in an hour, so I guess it's not that far).
...I didn't notice much smoke in the room until some dickhead sat down next to me and lit up right in my face. I almost moved, but put up with it. Walking into the high rollers room was like a breath of fresh air compared to the commoners area. Overall though, the casino didn't seem any smokier than anywhere I've been in Vegas. Though it was during the day I went so it was a lot of old people, versus maybe the younger crowd that might come later at night?
They seemed to only have one cashier's cage, which had a huge long line. We asked someone if there was another, they recommended the high roller lounge since there's never a line there. For the most part she was right, but there was a lady in front of us who I think was deeding away her house to the casino or something, so we had to wait for that.
They have a shuttle service from Chinatown that's free if you show a players card/ID. (Not sure how you get on if you've never been there to have the players card???). The shuttle takes 1.5 hrs or less and supposedly has TVs and goodies on board.
They have a kids arcade where parents can drop their kids off for the day while they go play real games... Kind of a cool idea, except it plays into the whole no parenting skills bit. But still cool.
Overall the place is very nice. Because it's further out from Chicago than nearby casinos, the people are more mixed (normal/locals mixed with people who are probably on welfare, vs going to Indiana where it's mostly people on welfare). Parts of it are cheesey and play into hype. They give you a casino map when you sign up for the player's card. Seriously, it's big but not that big... Just walk around you lazy bum and find what you're looking for. You'll probably need to walk some of that buffet fat off anyway.
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Okay, where to start. My boyfriend and I decided to head to Four Winds for a laid back celebration of our 5th anniversary. We thought that here was a little slice of Vegas close to home.
We had an amazing time! Newly opened in August 2007, this place sure beats heading to the beaten down boats in Indiana. It had a Green Valley Ranch Resort feel Ala Vegas, a great atmosphere, tons of gaming, a World Poker Tour room for all of the poker buffs. Enough slots to go nuts and several restaurants to choose from.
Since we had a romantic anniversary dinner a few days before we decided to do something just laid back. I was craving a burger, but my boy and his hearty appetite decided to truly pay homage to Vegas and therefore we hit the buffet. This is where it gets a little questionable. I thought that the selection was great. Plenty of seafood, steaks and the traditional buffet around the world concept with the various ethnic stations. Of course, when you hit any buffet some items are going to be hit or miss. So knowing that I didn't expect to love everything.
But if I were to be uber critical I would say that my only complaints were the crab legs that were over boiled (hey you spend 5 minutes trying to crack one leg and you expect crab meat not mush and water oozing out) and the much anticipated dessert buffet (you see it when you first walk in and if you're anything like me you're already planning your point of attack before you even have dinner). My boyfriend hated the dessert buffet first, meaning he was finished with his dinner and hit the dessert buffet while I was still working on my first plate. So he reported back to me with a thumbs down. But since everything looked amazing I was having a hard time believing that things were as tasteless as he claimed. So being the dessert super freak that I am, I decided to take one for the team and sampled several different desserts and I hate to admit that he was right. It should be a crime to ruin chocolate anything. But no, it didn't stop at the chocolate, the lemon tarts, the puffed pastry, the eclairs all had zero taste. I thought for one moment that maybe I pulled from the sugar free desserts, but I wasn't that fortunate.
After dinner we ran into my best friend on the gaming floor ( I had no idea she was going there, shows you how much we communicate) and she raved about this juicy burger she just had at the deli in the casino. Needless to say I should have gone with my internal food cravings. But like I said if buffets aren't your thing, then they have a steak house, a seafood restaurant (named Swimm, how cute is that), a place that serves breakfast and sandwiches, a fast food grill right in the middle of the casino action.and I believe a couple of other dining options including an ice cream parlor. So you definitely won't starve.
We didn't have the pleasure of staying overnight, but I hear the rooms are pretty nice. I loved the interior design of both the casino and the hotel lobby. Loved the illuminated winding drive path that leads to the casino.
I am definitely making plans to go back. It's great for a girl's or boy's night out or a couples mini retreat. No, it'd definitely not Vegas, but it's a pretty cool alternative and a lot closer to home (took us about an hour or a little less to get there).
It's a really beautiful complex, complete with the mile-long winding driveway and generous use of wood to give it a more natural look and feel. Asthetically, I'd give it a 9 out of a 10. All of the restaurants have a nice look and feel as well, but I've only tried the buffet. The buffet is pretty good as far as buffets are concerned. It definitely caters to the Midwestern diet of meat, along with even more meat. There are many selections in the buffet and I think there's enough to pretty much please anyone's diet, even vegetarians.
Downsides: The casino floor could use a few more bathrooms, along with clear signs for the ones they already have. My biggest problem with the casino overall is the smoke. Four Winds provides a really small smoke-free area, but unless they haven't heard of diffusion, a smoke-free area adjacent to, and not separated from a smoking area, really doesn't do much. The employees are quick to point out that the casino has the latest, state-of-the-art, air filtration system. This may be, but I'll still be limiting my visits because of the smoke is just overwhelming. If they had a separate, closed-off area for non-smokers, just like they do for the VIP area, I'd be there losing money several times a week. I've already been there twice in the first week since they opened and have won money on blackjack and on the slots. I really like the place and could see going there quite often, but the lack of an area that is closed off for specifically for non-smokers will limit my visits.
Hey Management, not all of us habitual gamblers wants to breathe smoke from others. Some of us like to drink and gamble, but abhor cigarette smoke. Otherwise, overall you've created a really beautiful casino and your employees are all really friendly.
Addendum: The pit bosses seem pretty amateur. They're constantly interrupting Blackjack game dealers while people are asking for a hit or passing. Very lame.
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