This place was merely "ok" for me. I wasn't a huge fan of the ambiance there from the minute we walked in. It's just very cold/industrial/uninviting to me and I don't like the whole "seat yourselves" thing, I never have. I'd actually prefer to wait for a table, rather than just try to grab the first open table I see. I feel it helps organize things better, from a service standpoint anyway.
Our server wasn't bad per se, I think she was just very young and inexperienced. Their menus are laminated and they bring you a black magic marker along with your menu and ask you to "check off" the items you want to order. There are items printed on both sides of the menu. Unfortunately, our server forgot to check both sides of my menu when I handed it to her. Needless to say when she only brought me a salad and said 'well I think that's everything" I said "oh, except for the Fiesta Flatbread"....and she says "oh shoot, I forgot to check both sides of your menu! I'll put that in right now"...at this point my husband had already gotten his dinner so he kind of waited around for my food to arrive so we could eat together. To their credit though, my flatbread did come out within the next 5-6 minutes later, not too long at all. Aside from that, our waitress just had a bit of a habit of disappearing for a bit too long at a time, but she was very polite and courteous. Again, I think she was just very inexperienced, which I don't hold against her.
The menu itself leaves a bit to be desired, from my perspective anyhow. They have a "build your own salad" option, which I initially thought was a cool idea. However, they don't tell you what type of greens they'll be using for the salad on the menu. It just says "build your own salad" and then gives you several different boxes to check (which include toppings only, and they are only veggie toppings, i.e. tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, mushroom, etc). The toppings are all 50 cents each. A large salad is $6 and a small is $4. Again, I initially thought this was a pretty good deal. I ordered a small salad w/ cucumber, carrot and tomatoes as my choice of "toppings". They brought out a very odd shaped, tall, square bowl on a cutting board (why is every meal served on a cutting board at this place?? It makes for a very overcrowded table when the cutting boards are all about 9" long by 4" wide) with 3 smaller bowls next to it (one for each topping)...so now I'm literally building my own salad? Ok, no matter. What irked me though, was that the greens they used were just iceberg lettuce. You get no seasonings (there wasn't even a salt or pepper shaker on any table that I could see), no croutons. Just iceberg lettuce with a handful of extremely small diced cucumber, tomatoe and carrot. As for dressing, they have 4 kinds. Instead of asking you which kind you'd like, they just bring out a dressing "caddy" w/ all 4 bottles. Again, unnecessarily taking up more space on the table. For $4 that salad was "ok"...I really wish they would've used much better salad greens though. Iceberg lettuce is so cheap. I feel like I could get an iceberg lettuce salad at McDonalds or a cafeteria. Not my first choice in the world of salad greens.
There aren't really a lot of menu options to begin with. They have a very strange theme of serving everything on a piece of flatbread. There are Mexican inspired flatbreads (which is what I ordered) which is essentially a piece of flatbread w/ avacado paste smeared on the bottom, with canned black beans, mozarella cheese and brown rice over top. It wasn't bad tasting by any means, it was pretty good. The flatbread was nice and crispy, the food was warm. But again, I just feel like it resembled something I could have just made at home. It looked like a meal I would conjure up on a weeknight when I was too tired to produce an actual dinner, lol. I just also find the whole "flatbread phenomena" at this place a bit overdone. Seriously, a meatball flatbread, a Mexican flatbread, a veggie flatbread, turkey bacon flatbread...pretty much just whatever you can throw on a flatbread, those are your choices. Oh, and there are like 3 different types of sandwiches to pick from, that's it. There are also 3 different desserts to choose from..and guess what?? Yep, they're all on a flatbread :(
I realize this place is a brewery first and foremost, so their focus is mainly on their beer being served. They do have a ton of beer options. I personally don't drink beer so I ordered Ace Pear cider, something I've had before many times. It was served to me flat and semi-warm.
This place is "meh" for me. I seriously doubt I'd feel the need to go back. I'd be more likely to try "Public" across the street. That seems a bit more my style. read more