My mom always talked about frequenting Pitcher's Pub in the 70s, and that her go-to drink was Swamp Water. I finally stopped in a few months ago, and the drink was delicious! It was SO strong, which had me laughing because my mom is not a drinker! I honestly can't believe that she drank these throughout her 20s. Either way, it was really good, and now I know why it's their signature drink. I was really impressed with how expansive it is inside - lots of pool tables, gambling machines, tv's, and a long bar with plenty of seating. When I went, it was mid-afternoon on a weekday, so I would definitely like to return when the place is hopping! It definitely looks like a super fun place to hang out on a Saturday night. read more

Pitcher's Pub - Swamp water - Pubs Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

Had a really bad experience here about a year and a half ago. My friends were definitely racially profiled in this establishment by the security here. I understand everyone was there late, and that can be irritating if your shift is about to end and you want to go home. But if you state that you are open until 2, people are going to expect to stay until 2 am. We went for a friends birthday, and we were going to start here and make our way downtown to just bar hop and play some games of pool. At about 1:00 the security told everyone last call for drinks and we all got something and headed back to the table we were sitting at. They then proceeded maybe 15 minutes later to say we needed to clear out. Now I would like to add we were not the only people in there. At least 10 other groups of people continuing their games of pool. My friend whose birthday it was went to take his last shot at the 8 ball. Literally our last ball, and the security comes over and starts to harass my friend. Stating it's his business which we understood so we started to pack up because at this point they were clearly uncomfortable by the way he was approached by the security. On the way out the security CONTINUED to talk under his breath about my friend. He did not approach anyone else in that bar except us. The rest of the room continued to play pool until they finished their games. He felt extremely uncomfortable and racially profiled since he was one of three POC in that whole bar, and as a matter of fact those three people were in our group. They all felt some sort of way about how he was approached and we all agreed to never step foot in this establishment ever again. And this is not the first incident I've heard of happening here.... read more

Nice local dive-ish sort of place. Good pub grub and beer in a comfortable welcoming atmosphere. The staff is fantastic : super friendly and prompt service without being overbearing. Just a great spot to hang out and chat with friends while sharing a couple beers. read more

Pitcher's Pub - Menu (10-2024) - Pubs Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

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10/10 the best dive bar in Madison. Pool, Darts, Foosball, what more could you want? Add in that its like a bowling ally without a bowling ally and the food slaps, you're going to want to check this place out. Past the fact that it is a bit of a sketch location, the food and drinks here are super cheap and good. There is plenty of space to spread out with a group and vibe. Some of our favorites to get: -Mini Corn Dogs : idk where they get these from, maybe it's the fryer oil, but it is bomb af and i get them every time -Grilled Cheese/Ham&Cheese : thing diner, but better. -Cowboy Bites: cheese, jalabeno, and potato fried, YUM -Swamp Water: their specialty drink, don't ask question, just drink I love this place so much and take all my friends here whenever we want a semi lowkey night with drinks, fun, and activities. read more

This was our last stop of the day before I left town to go home and it's a weird place because it's behind a pawn shop is a strange commercial area and you can't see it from the street so if you didn't already know about the place it's completely hidden. The front door is so unassuming for what's inside because it's a large space with tons of pool tables, dart machines, foosball tables, golf game, gaming machines etc etc. The bar is long and they have a fenced in outdoor cage area where you can drink and smoke or just be outside. The bartender chick and the people next to us were friendly and talkative so it's not one of those bars that makes new people feel like what are you doing in my place. They have a kitchen with a decent menu as far as bar food goes but we were just having drinks. Overall it's a pretty cool place to eat, drink and play some bar games with friends. read more

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Cheap drinks and food - large space for groups, lots of TVs and the service was excellent.

Stopped by Pitcher's for lunch this time. Still the great place I remember. Greeted as I walked in, immediate service. I was reminded how big the place is and how many games (darts, pool, foosball, golden tee, etc.) they have. A ton of TVs to watch too! Ordered the cheeseburger special and got it with cheese curds. Didn't take long to make and serve and both were very delicious. Still one of my favorite places for a good quick lunch or to watch a game on TV. read more

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Great owners and best open space for games and sports. Definitely the best place in the area to go for a drink or lunch. Highly recommended.

This is right behind my house & I love it lol great food the bartender is nice and cooks your food fast

Only went to relive the Swampwater sagas we remember from the late 1970s and the place has likely enlarge about 3x. Definitely a "bar" for drinking ... now that I have the Swampwater with a more seasoned palate, I wondered what I was thinking back in college.... oh yea, now I remember, that's why we drank those in college ... all the way up until one of friends walked home (near Memorial Union) and showed up 18 hours later ... girlfriend called the cops ... etc., etc. He showed up, covered in burrs and a little worse for wear . . . ahhhh foolish youthfulness. read more

It's like a dive bar and sports bar had a baby! My new go-to spot for Friday night trivia. Great prices. All day $1.50 Hamms, my guilty pleasure. They've also got Swamp Waters (haven't gotten the balls to try one yet - I hear they're very sweet). I felt like I walked into an adult playhouse on my first visit. The bar is huge! There are tons of pool tables and dart boards, as well as a foosball table. To make things even better they've got a full menu! I've only had their onion rings and jalapeño poppers. Nothing fancy, but they pair great with beer. One of my new favorite dive bars! read more

I enjoy this place. I don't have a reason to give it 5 stars but I don't think it deserves lower! My boyfriend, friends and I really enjoy pool and darts and this place has A LOT of pool tables and dart boards. It's a fun place to hang out and chill. The bar food is average, but what can you expect. I personally don't understand the rave over swamp waters (see picture), and was told 2 of them are enough, but I could barely feel it (and I don't drink that often) - maybe my pace is too slow, haha! Regardless, the place is huge and fairly priced. read more

Pitcher's Pub - Pubs Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

I say this in the best way possible: If you have low expectations for your night out, this bar is perfect. Pitcher's is a dive bar through and through so managing your expectations is key. To set the scene, it's located in a remote area off the Beltline in the basement of a warehouse building. Upon entering, it's a huge area with dozens of bar pool tables, darts, foosball, and other games. This is definitely the best place I've found in Madison to play pool ($1.25 per game). Select nights there's poker and pool tournaments. There's also a heated smoking area outside. Well drinks and beer are super cheap. I personally always go for a mini pitcher (4.50 I think). They also have their signature drink, Swamp Water. If you're looking for fancy cocktails or high end liquor, don't come here. The bar staff always consists of the same few people who have all been there for 5+ years. They also have shitty bar food (also said in the best way possible). I'd recommend the mini tacos, which I'm almost certain they buy frozen from Walmart. read more

We love Pitcher's Pub! Favorite bartenders in town. Great food. Been going there for years.

Great place for darts and pool games with friends Super chill. Favorite on menu are the broccoli cheese bites.

This place rocks....Pure and simple. If you are looking for a great Madison establishment stop by pitchers!!!! Tell Kevin you want a Swamp water and he'll know exactly what you want. Tell Brian you like his smile or Sara or Mary you like their style and they will ask you what the bleep you are talking about. Tell any of them or Zach or Ben that you saw this review and they tell you how sorry they are that you read my review....Then ask them for the Haggy discount and they will charge you an extra buck or two just because!.... Seriously though if you are looking for a great bar with even better staff make your next stop Pitchers Pub! read more

The food is great. I know it sounds weird to call bar food great but it really is. Inferno wings, Reuben, French dip special- everything is delicious. The drinks are good and the specialty (swampwater) is amazingly good and strong. The service on weekday days is great but I haven't done nights and the owner makes an effort to learn your name, drink and welcome you in. No issues no complaints. Just great food and drinks for a reasonable price. read more

Definitely surprised by the location of this bar. I would call it a hidden gem. You have to access it via the frontage road access off of Rimrock. It shares the back of the building of a pawn shop. Once you see the sign you will wonder how you missed it. It is nothing flashy but the size makes you get over that. They have great/affordable drink specials. There are dart leagues, pool leagues and Foosball leagues. There are so many set-ups for each of these. This is the perfect place to grab a drink with a big group of friends. I did not eat when I went, but the people I was with had very good things to say about the food. There is no waitress service. And they have trivia on Fridays. I think you will not be disappointed with this laid back feel. read more

Finally found a good pool and darts place in Madison. As mentioned, smoking is allowed, and there's no escape from the smell. But because of the space size, it's not stuffy at all. Yeah, it feels like a dive center. I heard that they cleaned up quite a bit through recent renovations to ditch the image of coke-snorting house. I liked the vibe and the crowd. read more

This is not just a dive bar, it's a dive warehouse. It's friggin' huge. It's packed with dozens of pool tables, foosball tables and dart boards. There are probably 50+ tables with multiple chairs throughout the whole thing. The bartenders are laidback and easy to have a laugh with. The rail gin is usually Tanqueray (for under $4/drink), which delights me to no end. FYI, this is in the "town" of Madison, not the city. Therefore, be prepared for lots and lots of smokers inside! read more

Great place for bar games and pool tables. Spacious and great environment. Theres a bar for all your drinking needs. Bathrooms arnt the best but not dirty read more

Nothing fancy here and that's just fine. This place is massive and has the most pool tables and dart boards I've ever seen in one place. Large bar and service is typically fast and friendly enough. The drinks are strong and decently priced. They also serve your standard bar food, mini corn dogs being my fav =) read more

I went today for lunch. There were about 10 people in there and it took over 25 minutes for me to get a basic burger. In that time there were only 2 other food tickets ahead of me and one being prepared simultaneously. The problem wasn't the cook though. It was the bartender. The bartender spent so much time chatting up a few guys that she didn't pay attention to other customers or when the food orders were up. I walked in and went past near her but she couldn't even be bothered in her discussion with the one guy to acknowledge me. I almost left when it took several minutes for her to come over and say anything at all to me. When I saw her leave 2 completed food order in the kitchen for several minutes before she delivered them to the table I should have know to leave. Again i stupidly stayed. When my food was ready she wasn't paying attention. She was talking to another guy and again giving him all of her attention. Of course, by that time I had to go to her to ask for a box and take the food to go to get back to work. read more

So I came in this bar, never been here before. The bartender Kayla was very rude and inappropriate towards my friend and me. Seemed like she didn't like her job...perhaps not a good fit for her, needs a desk job without being in the public eye. . However the other bartenders were amazing, smiles, fast delivery. Not sure if I will return, once I learn her hours I may. read more

Sort of a best secret place ... Friendly bar located off the Beltline. Like I said, service was great and friendly with reasonable prices. Good beers on tap, many more in bottles. Lots of pool tables. Food was good enough, and pretty fast. Mixed/friendly crowd. Would visit again. read more

Love it! Consistently great! Never disappointed. Great burgers, great service! Great place to play darts and/or pool and the drinks are cheap and made well! read more

I had been going to this place for years. It's close to my place. I played darts here for several years. I played in their dart tournaments.. Spent a lot of money supporting this bar. Several months ago, I was with some friends and I was chewing tobacco. I was drunk and I made a mistake of disrespecting their establishment and made the mistake of spitting on the floor. Absolutely no excuse, and I'm embarrassed I did that. Confronted next time I was in, I admitted and apologized to what I had done. No excuses. I was wrong. The next several times I was in I was warned and harassed by the bartenders and threatened to be banned for life...not that I went in there a lot, but I was certainly harassed. I get it, I made a mistake. I never chewed tobacco in there after that initial incident, but my friend did. He, in reality was absolutely a large part of the issue that night and every night he went in after that. Each time after that, I was harassed, and I wasn't even chewing....absolutely nothing. I felt horrible. Completely respectful. I haven't had any tobacco in there since I screwed up that time and I really do feel bad. However, after several bouts of harassment I went in tonight with same disrespectful idiot that is the the true instigator of the problem they have not harassed. I watched him spit and throw his chew on the floor. Absolutely was not me. He left, and when I returned from the bathroom I was harassed again an accused by the bartender that I did it. She left napkins there for me to clean it up. I refused and was angry I was falsely accused. The bartender would not apologize and did not believe me. Told her to check cameras...take a dna test of what was on floor, it was absolutely not me. She was horrible to me. Yes, I was angry, but completely falsely accused and she would not believe me. Kicked me out for life for something I 100 percent did not do. She would not apologize to me. Told me to get over it, but still accusing me of it. I own what I did months earlier and not proud of it. She needs to own her actions. I sent numerous messages to my ex friend to contact them, clear the air and apologize. He denied and wasn't going to do it...and I watched him do it. How dare them falsely accuse me of this action. Spent a lot of time and money in this establishment and I will never ever go there again. Perhaps they they should reprimand the true culprit? Excuse my language., but bartender was a a complete bitch in this situation. I have zero respect for her or this establishment. Could have been settled peacefully. Check the f...Ing cameras. Don't falsely accuse someone again. Yes, the 3rd time falsely accused with zero evidence and all those cameras I was mad. He is no longer my friend because he can't own up to his repeated mistakes and piss on the staff from Pitchers for making numerous premature judgements. I owned what I I did initially. Unbelievable!!! Good luck going into that messed up environment. I will never be back!!!! read more

I've only experienced this bar on a few occasions and it was only to play in a dart league. Which I must add has excellent competition. I thought i was a descent player but wow. A 4.5 mpr in a game of cricket. That is impressive. This bar is one of the biggest i've every been in. It has more dart boards and pool tables than you could shake a stick at. It also has a descent array of music. I haven't checked out the Jule box but the music it has played has be descent. The pride and joy of the place is its huge projector screen with the big game always on it. If your a sports fan you will love this screen. Downsides to the place is the location. It is off Rimrock road just off the belt line and the entrance is in the back. Its very difficult to find and the crowd is of the older persuasions. All in all if your looking to have a few beers, play darts, and watch a good game. I would suggest giving this play a try. read more

A neighborhood bar with typical bar food. I had fried fish. I asked if they had malt vinegar and all they could offer was distilled white vinegar. I think they use it for cleaning. The fish was nothing special. I'd go back to have a drink or to play pool or darts. The atmosphere was fun. I just thought the food would be better. read more

As far as a place to meet friends, hang out, and play pool or darts, it's great. Haven't had food here.

This place is a joke. I went here for a friend's birthday because we heard it had plenty of pool tables and dart boards. We thought it would be nice to have a table to ourselves for the night while we had a few drinks, and they did not disappoint. There were tons of open tables, and dart boards lining an entire side of the building. It was really pretty neat to see, and it felt good to be able to casually play a few games without having someone watching or waiting for the table to open up. However, the drinks and service here were abysmal. I am very certain I got legitimately ripped off at this place. I ordered a Grey Goose on the rocks with a lime to start off. With my first sip I could tell immediately that it was not Grey Goose. It was just whatever rail vodka they had laying around. It was awful. Obviously I can't really prove that it wasn't Grey Goose, so I just muddled my lime into the drink and powered through it. We eventually kind of laughed it off, thinking maybe it was a mistake of some sort, until my friend ordered a Jack Daniels and coke. With his first sip, he was in the same boat I was - it was not Jack Daniels. Hell, after I tried it, I wasn't even sure it was whiskey. High shelf alcohol isn't cheap, so I really felt we were getting robbed by this place. I tried ordering a second Grey Goose on the rocks to see if I could watch the bartender pour from the bottle just to be sure I wasn't crazy, but instead of pouring it in front of me, she ran off to the other side of the bar completely out of sight of me. I would get it if she had returned with the bottle of Grey Goose and poured it in front of me (something every other bartender I've ever had serve me has done), but instead she returned with my glass already poured. Once again, it was most certainly not Grey Goose. I got rail booze the rest of the night to save money, but it was not a pleasant experience. Don't go here unless you plan to just drink beer or really like rail liquor. Or if you get off on being robbed by a seedy bar. read more

Pitcher's pub is a great place for bar sports, they have a ton of dart boards, pool table's, and Foss ball tables, with weekly tourneys. The bar staff is great and they mix up a lot of specialty drinks. (try the purple drink, it's great) read more

Decent food and beer at a reasonable price, plus a ton of space compared to most of the other bars in Madison.

THEY ARE RUDE AS HELL! As I am writing, its right now 1:55 am. Place states that they are open from 10 am to 2:30 am. At exactly 1:07 am after we bought 6 pitchers and started another game of billiards they started yelling out to finish our beer and to get out. They repeatedly kept yelling to head to the doors and get out. We asked the bartender, an older guy with grey hair, "Why?" He didn't even give us the time of day. He was abrupt and kept on collecting cups and telling us to get out. One of their drunk "friend" (they claim he don't work there, even though he's strutting around like he has the rights) wandered on over and stared us down and told us to get the out. We were confused at why they are telling us that when we, for years have previously stayed later. We wanted an answer because we still had a lot of beer left. It's a Friday night and we brought our guests from out of town there! Things escalated quickly at their rude behavior. At one point the "friend" got into our faces and threatened to fight. The owner came and gave us half an answer. We eventually left with emptier pockets and beer that we tried finishing as they ushered us to the door. We go there periodically. And when we go, we invite a lot of our friends to chill out. We don't skimp on drinks either. It's safe to say that we will never go there again and we will encourage all of our friends as will as our community to stop going there as will. They can close when they want but the way they approached us was appalling. And if they were going to close that early they should of told us before hand instead of taking our money and kicking us out. read more

One star might be harsh but Pitcher's Pub thoroughly offended me on Saturday and I feel the need to warn people away. Look it's a good space, maybe they have decent food, I but I refuse to support an establishment that employs snotty workers and does everything half-way. I went to Pitchers Pub on the night of the Big Ten championship because I heard read good reviews and because they advertised themselves as a Sports bar - has to be a good place to catch the game, right? Wrong. Even though they have TVs and a nice big projector, they made it impossible to watch the game. We had to ask them to put the projector down and when they did we found that some bozo had put the projector right behind the lights on the pool table, casting a shadow in the middle of the sceen. No big deal though, because they had the lights set up on a pully system to get it out of the way. But no one lifted it up - so I went to go ask if they could move it and the worker refused. It was, apparently, too much of a hassle. Fine, whatever. Then the game started and the bar was still playing Beyonce or whatever through the speakers. So we went to go ask if they would put the sound on for the game. The workers literally laughed in my face and said that wasn't going to happen. I was stunned. Everyone on the bar was watching the game (I knew as everyone shouted and cheered when we scored a touchdown) and it wasn't like this was some random, no-name game. Anyway, the point is that this place advertised themselves as a sport bar, but refused to play the game. If that wasn't bad enough they were incredibly rude about it too. We left. read more

The men that work there are terrible. Not accommodating and very rude. Especially the owner. If youre an attractive woman, dont go there.

Stop into pp for the first time in many years. The swamp waters are still great and the bartenders are very good. On the minus side, loud heavy metal music during badger game seems odd for a sports bar. Nothing terrible, but nothing that great. read more