Upon my first visit to Chattanooga I spent some time looking for a great place to eat. Urban Stack kept coming up in search results so I decided to give it a go and take the family.
For appetizer, I ordered the urban nachos (House cut potato chips topped with 3 Little Piggies Chili, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, black olives, jalapenos, green onion and sour cream.) I got the chili on the side and I'm glad I did because it was received with mixed reviews. The kettle chips just couldn't hold up with the toppings and became soggy quickly in my experience. 3/5
I ordered several burgers for dinner to try:
The Farm Burger (100% grass fed beef, sun-dried tomato relish, Cumberland cheese, celery mayo and lettuce.) Originally, I wanted to get grass fed patties on other burgers but the upcharge was $4 per patty, which I felt was unreasonable on $10 burgers. So I tried this as is. It was mild and not very flavorful. There was very little mayo or relish. I asked for more relish and the waiter took so long to bring it, my food was already eaten. (A trend with service I learned.) 2/5
Bacon Cheeseburger. There apparently isn't an actual bacon strips, beef patty cheeseburger available even though we weren't told this upon ordering. We did tell them it was our first visit, so it would have been helpful to warn us that we were actually getting the Gourmet Bacon Cheeseburger (American Kobe-style Wagyu beer, bacon-onion compote, lettuce and gruyere & blue cheese.) I ordered this for someone who doesn't like onions so the surprise of trying to pick off a pile of unions with small bacon crumbles attached to the melted cheese wasn't a good surprise. The flavor was onion heavy and not at all what was expected. When we asked about it, a server, not ours, said it didn't look right and was going to take it back, but our server intercepted them, talked then bright us back our burger as is, explaining it is correct. They didn't try to make it the way we wanted it or substitute it. I felt that was poor service. 1/5.
The Dirty Bird (Spicy fried chicken, lettuce, tomato, sharp yellow cheddar cheese, served with a side of honey hot sauce.) This is an example of why there isn't something called "Chattanooga Hot Chicken" - it just isn't great. Not bad, but not great. Basic. 3/5
Each of the burgers were about $10 and fries/sided are another $5 plus drinks. So we are talking about $20 per person (tax and tip). For the food at that price I would NOT recommend this restaurant. It was ok food, but not great at all.
But service was a huge pain in my experience and the final straw. The issue with the bacon burger was surprisingly unresolved. And while the server was very personable he was rarely there. I waited for about 45 minutes for my table and then was at the restaurant waiting for refills, mayo, and so on for significantly more time. It was a lot of waiting. Too much. I waited for over 10 minutes as my waiter walked past us a couple rows up several times and never came by when I was ready to pay, smiling at him, even - I think - making eye contact that wad ignored. By the time I left I felt that the barely acceptable food was heavily overwhelmed by the lack of service and high cost.
I won't go back. read more