Food was amazing: cheese curds and the Weekender pizza. The crust on the steel pan pizzas is awesome if you like it thick, bready, and crisp on the outside. The atmosphere is cool and beer list has lots of choices. Service was fine, but the one downfall was that we felt rushed out of there with our waiter coming by frequently while we were still finishing eating (and there were empty tables.) After we ordered a second round of drinks the waiter stopped rushing us. Overall, great place and will definitely return! read more

Nothing but compliments as far as the drinks and atmosphere. The vault downstairs is amazing and the bartenders and barbacks are smoking hot . A lot of time and effort goes into each drink and are well worth a generous tip. The food is ok and the deep dish is basically the equivalent of DiGiorno. Nachos were great and the service is second to none. The crowd seen here is younger-middle aged professional to typical Madison hipster. Great place to have a few drinks with friends or coworkers but don't be surprised if your bill ends up being over $100 as the drinks are more on the expensive side. Understandable as they want to attract a certain crowd. read more

Not sure if I just went there at a bad time, but it was really loud at dinner. I ate upstairs with my girlfriend and it felt like we were in a club. It was also a 30+ min wait and when we were seated it was half empty so I was a tad confused. Really really good pizza though. Can't remember what we had but the crust was just doughy enough and crispy at the same time. I'm a big service and atmosphere kind of guy... Would have given it 4 stars if not for that. read more

Absolute worst service ever. I have walked in twice, sat at bar in restaurant not even nearly full (not even 1/4 capacity) bartender barback and waiter just speaking to each other tell me they'll be there in a minute and kept talking for five, so I walked out. Second time I sat at bar in silence for 7 minutes before I walked out without an employee saying a word to me. I don't think I've ever written a review before for any reason. The foods probably decent I wouldn't know, because the training of the staff and the management is too atrocious to get me back in the door. read more

Lucille's has a great location and the building is very unique however, the food and environment itself was particularly underwhelming. We ordered the guacamole ($14- kind of pricey) which was quite bland and we could tell it was not fresh and had been sitting in a refrigerator. Additionally, the restaurant was completely covered in Christmas decorations. And I'm talking the walls, the chairs, the music, the servers which really did not make me want to return. I am by no means a Scrooge but everything was just a bit much and I kept thinking about how they were limiting their customer clientele by going overboard with the decorations. If I felt uncomfortable as a celebrator of Christmas I am sure someone who doesn't celebrate that holiday would have felt very out of place. But The pizza itself was pretty good, I enjoyed the caramelized onion. I will give it another try however. Everyone deserves a second chance! read more

This is probably my favorite place to get pizza. Not only is the food excellent, but the service and the atmosphere will definitely bring me back for more. Our server, Josh, kept our water filled at all times and made sure we always had everything we needed. He kept a smile on his face, and had a good attitude even after working all day long. He was personable and gave us individual attention despite the restaurant being busy (since everyone knows it's the best place in town). read more

I REALLY enjoyed the wood fired pizza. The ingredients were clearly fresh, the quality of the food was awesome and we had good service. Here is another restaurant that will be added to the list for regular visits when I am in town. Try it out! It was pretty good stuff. read more

Food is okay... but you really can't complain with free pizza at 4pm on fridays. If you are looking for a food rec here, the cookie pizza is my rec ;) read more

This place does some mad social-media marketing. I loved it and wanted to come check it out. Went a few weeks back with my wife for a early dinner. I got the impression from friends that it gets crazy busy at times so it was nice to come when it was slower. Very cool building - they did a great job converting an old space into something interesting. We were upstair which has a cool vibe and a casual and comfy feeling. Started with the Fried Cedar Grove Cheese Curds - these were good but ours were a touch overdone and it came with a ton of paprika-lime mayo (only really needed about a 1/3 of what they gave us). The main menu is basically two types of pizzas - Steel Pan and Wood fired. We decided to try one of each. Needless to say we don't mind leftovers (especially when its pizza!). I got a Wood-Fired pizza on special that night - a Jambalaya pizza with andouille sausage. It had great taste but needed a touch more cheese. It was kind of Jambalaya on pizza crust instead of Jambalaya flavored pizza. Still not a disappointment at all and the slightly burnt wood-fired taste was very good. My wife got a build your own steel pan. Pepperoni and mushroom I believe. She loved it - crunchy burnt cheese around the crust and great flavor. We had a debate over which style was best. I think I liked the burnt flavor of mine but the taste of hers. Guess we'll have to come back again and try some more! Service was great and we had a great time - I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars - it was a bit expensive and I wasn't blown away... I rarely give 5 stars (reserve those for outstanding places) but this was definitely like a 3.75. I'll try to come back again soon and see if the next visit seals the deal. Nice place though. Yum ; 0 read more

We chose Lucille for our son's rehearsal dinner and we're so glad we did. The atmosphere is exactly the sort of feel we were going for. Our event was held in the downstairs 'vault' room where it could be just our group of about 30. There is a private bar down there and the bartender (I didn't catch her name) did a super job of mixing up great cocktails and getting everyone served promptly. The vault has U shaped seating that creates a cozy space and allows for easy conversation. They had the space nicely set up with candles everywhere and our chosen music playing. I was greeted right away by Jonathan who was taking care of our group. He was so friendly and attentive and checked with me often throughout the event to be sure everything was going the way we hoped. We had some guests with dietary needs and he went out of his way to bring out an alternative dairy free dessert for them (we planned for dairy free food but didn't consider that with dessert). The food was delicious and nicely displayed. The sliders were especially outstanding and I'm so glad Maddy , who helped us with planning, suggested a double order! Speaking of Maddy, she was fabulous to work with and always reachable. The whole experience from early planning to completion was exactly what we'd hoped. Shout out to the chefs and any other behind the scenes people who helped make our evening special. We really appreciate it! read more

I went to Lucille with some friends for dinner and drinks, and it was AMAZING! The environment is so fun, we especially liked having drinks in the old bank vault after dinner. We all shared a wood fired pizza, steel pan pizza, and nachos. I wasn't able to decide which I liked best, because they were all delicious. The drinks were fun, creative, and as equally delicious as the food. We will definitely be returning. I highly recommend! read more

I was at Lucille today for my friend's birthday and we ordered several appetizers including cheese curds and the Italian salad. Both appetizers were delicious and came in a timely fashion even though the restaurant seemed busy. We ordered the queen and a build your own pizza, which were just as great. Our server Josh was friendly and made the birthday girl feel incredibly special. He was incredibly accommodating and made the experience one to remember. They gave our group a warm birthday dessert on the house. We will definitely be back. read more

I wanted a pizza but the toppings were extremely weird and unappealing so I ordered the tuna ceviche. Who puts canned mandarin oranges and canned mandarin orange juice on sushi grade tuna? Ick! Totally lame, uninspiring dish. read more

Lucille was great -- I went for a late lunch on a weekday, so it wasn't busy. Tried a couple of pizzas and salad and fried green tomatoes. It was all great -- I hadn't had fried green tomatoes like that in years. I'll be back my next time in town. read more

I really love the design and decor, stunning from the old Isthmus newspaper. That's the charm of Lucille, once the bartender Preston approached it was all lost. So rude and pompous. You'd think a new place would want to attract new customers, not scare them away before they've had a chance to order a drink. Hospitality isn't for every place I've learned from Lucille. read more

I honestly don't know what all the fuss is about. They don't take reservations on Friday nights and we waited for more than two hours, in a hot and steamy "bank vault" bar in the basement. It was stifling and outrageously loud. The seven of us could not carry on a conversation, except for one on one and even that was super tough. When we finally got our table upstairs there were so many people standing everywhere, surrounding the bar, but circling our table, that it begged the question of whether or not this establishment is having an identify crisis. Is it a nightclub or a restaurant? The crowd was mostly 20 somethings and quite trendy, so honestly, it seems more of a hot spot that food spot. We again could not carry on a conversation just like in the basement bar area, between the music and the jam-packed space, it was off-the-chart loud. In fact a child about 8 or 9 walked by our table with his fingers in his ears. The chairs? Dear god, what were they thinking? You have to sit straight up as if on a stool despite there being a chairback. Now for the food: Seriously, what is the fuss? It was not good. The salad was odd. The small garden type was huge and bitter with too much dressing. The pizza? My partner and I had the veggie steel-pan for 2-3 people. It was giant and mostly a super thick oily crust with more of a marinara type sauce and not much else. Other folks in the party had a thinner crust variation for 1-2 people. It was okay. Just not great. (A spot on Willy St. has far superior pizza!!!) We ordered three of the cookies with ice cream for dessert and they were seriously inferior--dry, overcooked and uninteresting. The food and ambiance were 100% not worth the wait on a fall Friday night. We were thinking maybe, just maybe the top floor would be calmer and a tad quieter for a conversation, and we were also thinking that lunch-time in the summer, with all the side glass doors open might make for a much more doable situation. read more

This is a place I can say I actually HATE eating at. I've been here for lunch a few times and dinner once, and I think just for drinks/apps at one point. My first lunch there was my worst experience, but my subsequent visits didn't improve much. My lunch experience was truly and rage inducing, insulting experience. (don't worry, I held myself together). I was there with a co-worker and two clients for lunch. We are not a large group (physically I mean) and 4 people literally didn't fit in the booths comfortably. The restaurant was just crammed with tables everywhere which made it nearly impossible to move around. The menu for lunch that day was...2 items. 2! And granted this seems to be a THING in Madison (and maybe other places in the country, but I'm seeing this as a trend in Madison for sure), this concept of "chef's choice". I've seen this at upscale restaurants and simple soup/sandwich places as well. The "chef" Is literally telling you what you are going to eat. This makes sense in a high-end place or a place that has a famous chef or something, but in a wood-fired brick oven pizza place? Come on. Anyway, thankfully the one of the two pizza options they had was something I liked so I ordered that (as did everyone else at the table because there REALLY was no other choice). Pizza and a little salad. How bad can this be? Well, let me tell you. VERY bad. VERY VERY bad. The pizza's show up and they are tiny, which for lunch is probably ok. These are like 4-inch pizzas though. It's barely a snack. Again, it's lunch so whatever. This tiny little pizza is served on a wooden plank next to a pile of...salad I suppose. I like, salads, and I like fancy/unique salads. I'm not an iceberg only guy or anything, but this was literally a pile of weeds and other lawn waste - stems and all. No joke. Anyway, I gave it a shot, but two bites in and the was no saving this pile of whatever it was. There was some sort of dressing on it, but it was either the cause of the nastiness or at least did nothing to save it. Just bitter, bad...ugh.. my stomach is actually turning now as I'm recalling it. Moving on to the pizza. It looked really good. Hand made crust, with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes on it. One of my favorite things on this planet. ...and nope. I have no idea what they put in this thing, but it was horrible.. the sauce.. was... I don't know. I can't even describe it... the cheese was stringy, and more/less flavorless. and gosh I can't even remember what else. I remember trying to focus on the crust hoping to find something good about, but I seem to recall nearly breaking a tooth on the edge and the rest being over powered by whatever it was they put on it. I was starving at this point, so I forced the first piece down... and started into the second...I got two or 3 bites in and my body started rejecting it. Like it went into defense mode and wouldn't let me swallow any more of this nonsense. So, I stopped eating and tried to be casual about it. As we left, I noticed that most people had left most of their lunch on the wooden plank as well. Anyway, I won't go in to as much detail on my other visits, but they ended much the same way. Drinks maybe. They seemed to have a good beer/wine selection, but the mixed drinks were super weak and expensive. I was there for a drinks/apps night with some business partners we all commented on how weak the drinks were. The apps, I don't seem to recall what we had. Anyway. This place is stupid, crowded and the brick-oven/wood-pizza thing is little more than a gimmick. Heck, I'm seeing food trucks at street fares with "brick ovens" in them making MUCH better pizza. This is ANOTHER Madison restaurant I will be actively avoiding. read more

Driest pizza we've ever had on both their gluten free & regular crusts, & we consume ALOT of pizza. Premixed 'craft' cocktails, !!! Caesar slams, we asked if it was super anchoviey, waitress 'no', reality yes.... the place looks so great & inviting, though uber disappointing. read more

Went for lunch on a Friday -- service was very slow, they were busy but no different than typical for a place on the square. Had the lunch pizza special, it was served with a side of greens and bland vinaigrette. I'm not in a hurry to return. read more

Great interior design, decent service but not amazing. Staff floated around making marks on iPads without interacting with customers - struck me as a bit odd. My 2-star review is due to their wheat-contaminated gluten-free pizza crust. Granted, everyone makes mistakes, but when I let the front-desk staff know that I suffered all weekend because of wheat contamination from their pizza, they shrugged and said 'ok.' and looked away. No 'oh, thanks for letting us know, we'll work on that.' or 'sorry.' Just nothing. Can't recommend, as a result. read more

Fantastic space. Everything else was just okay. Nothing bad but nothing excellent either. We came in on a weekday early evening and were seated right away at one of the long community tables. We sat down at ten to six and noticed that happy hour included 20% EVERYTHING (!!) until six. I'm always on the look out for a good deal so I quickly began perusing the menu in hopes that we would be ready to order when the server came over. Except that it took over 15 minutes to be greeted. Had I been a bit cranky, perhaps I would have pointed this out and insisted we receive the discount, but I wasn't cranky so I didn't. It was a gorgeous evening and was happy to be out of work early :) Did this impact my scoring of Lucille? Nope, not this alone. But the rough service continued throughout out our visit. Very inattentive and not the most friendly. The beer selection was decent but not a very wide variety of styles-very heavy on wheat beers and the such. Not much in terms of IPAs or pale ales. Yes I know it's light beer season but don't neglect us hop heads! We tried the veg-fest steel pan style. All the ingredients tasted super fresh but I was a bit put off by the cheddar cheese included in the crust. Just seemed a little odd given the flavor profile of the rest of the pizza. Perhaps parmesan or provolone would be a better choice? My bf was a big fan so we will probably be back but if left to me, I'd probably go elsewhere, especially when I need a pizza fix. read more

Great atmosphere, although it can be loud for conversation if it's crowded. There just aren't many soft surfaces to absorb sound. In the summer they open the large doors, which is lovely. The food is delicious, but the bill can add up quickly with salad and wine (few glasses under $10). They also have an interesting tap list, but it would be helpful to have descriptions so you can browse. Try a daiquiri shooter, yum! read more

Waiter said they were known for their pizza's, so we ordered one. Yuck ... soggy, limpy crust, plus no flavor!!! We also ordered the shoestring fries for an appetizer. The pizza arrived first. When we questioned about the fries, our waiter said he was going to bring them with the pizza. We asked if they were ready and we were told no!!! So we cancelled them. Bloody Mary was so-so. Very disappointed to say the least! read more

Wood fired Sunshine pizza had little taste. Very pricey for what you get. Salad was good, but what's with the warm water served at the table? Ice go out of style? I won't be back... I'll leave it to the hipsters! read more

After hearing mixed reviews about Lucille I decided to give it a try for myself and the first time I went I loved the atmosphere and the food was good as well so I was excited to take some out of town friends here to try it again. We ended up getting to Lucille much later than we had planned but when we checked with the hostess to see if we could still order food she said our kitchen is open until 11:00pm and if you give us about 15 mins we can get a table ready for you. She took my info, told us to grab a drink and she'd text me when our table was ready. After 20 mins we came back upstairs to check with her an there was no one at the hostess area. I stopped a bartender who was passing by and told him I just wanted to make sure they are still getting us a table. He said he would check and I watched him circle around the bar and just go back to what he was doing. At this point we are starving so we left and went across to Tipsy Cow. Thankfully we explained to them what happened at Lucille and even though their kitchen was closing in a few minutes, they were able to accommodate us and the food was great! I never even received a text from Lucille. If they weren't willing to accommodate us I just wish they would have been up front about it so we wouldn't have waisted another 30 mins waiting. They should learn from their neighbor restaurants when it comes to customer service. read more

awful bartender service. spend your money somewhere else.. 15min to get a drink and the bar wasnt that busy.

I have used Yelp for restaurant recommendations for years although I have never taken the time to post a review, until tonight. I want to preface that I have worked in the service industry as a bartender the past seven years and know how to differentiate between good service, poor service, service that is slower because of high volume, and service that is slow because the person doesn't give a shit. I am in town visiting from California and stopped in tonight. First of all, LOVE the Christmas decorations! But I feel the need to write this because the service was great tonight. The bartenders (Sarah was our main server) were attentive, welcoming, and even polite when I was the annoying tourist who asked her to take our group's picture while she was busy working. But the reason I am compelled to write this is because there was a jerk (let's be honest, he was an asshole) next to us who was unbelievable rude to the bartender Sarah and made a scene raising his voice at her. First off I commend her because she was ten times more professional than I would have been lol. But I just wanted to write this review in her defense because I'm sure this idiot will rush home to write a Yelp review. So in case this guy writes a review, any future customers, and management: service, food, and drinks were amazing. Sarah was great and the guy was a douche canoe. I hope he reads this and learns some manners. Merry Christmas read more

A truly spectacular addition to the Square! I can't remember a time when I could get pizza on the square. Hats off to the design and construction team on a job well done. There are about 25 unique taps on the main level that are consistently being rotated. For those of you who log unique beers on 'Untappd', you will find a new unique beer here. The bar is large so I have found it easy to find service. Great craft cocktails as well! In the private dining area upstairs, we received really solid service after spending a shorter than expected wait. We enjoyed our cocktails and conversation in the bank vault downstairs while waiting for a table. Time passed quickly!!! Our food was delicious and the view info the Capitol is fabulous. Don't forget to try the warm cookie dessert!! The balcony overlook to the Capital will quickly become a popular FB, Twitter, and Instagram spot! Overall, our dining experience was fantastic! Highly recommend. read more

Still pissed off about the experience I had at Lucille last night. First of all, they tell you it's 5$ for the slice. For how much they give you that's not the problem. However, she tells us we can pick up to 3 toppings. CHEESE counts as one of those toppings ...then we get the bill and it comes out to 9$, at which point the waitress finally tells us the toppings cost EXTRA. So you tellin me I gotta pay for CHEESE on my pizza?!?! And if I gotta pay for each topping, I can still only pick 3?? Lmao WOW.. THEN, we get the food, and the tomato sauce is literally WATER, which made the inside of the pizza soggy, while the crust was BURNT smh y'all might as well made me pay for the sauce and the crust if that would make you get the shit right! Smh...I give y'all an overall of score of 2/10, and that's ONLY because the bartender happened to give us a free shot. Otherwise this place is absolute , at least when it comes to the food. Also, Yelp made me download their app just to write this, so you know this place sucks. I never even review anything anywhere, but this was so much of a joke I had to do it. Yelp, for making me download the app, you get a 1/5 read more