True West Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Acton

I'm afraid I'm going to have to echo other reviews on the service. At the end of the day I'm going 4 stars because the food was phenomenal, as was the beer. Perhaps a bit pricey but they're obviously using good ingredients which we are happy to pay for. We will definitely go back, but hopefully with a better service experience.

I'll also preface this by saying I'm very critical of bad service. I did the job for a few years and learned a lot of these lessons the hard way, but you've got to learn them or it ruins the whole experience. I'm taking the time to write this because it seems like the owners are responsive and I hope they'll take it as constrictive.

Our poor server was new (she told us) and clearly flustered. I attribute a lot of this to her time management, heading back to the computer or the bar after each table will make you fall behind real quick. We were seated, got our waters, received our drinks, and decided on our food. As we begin to order, we are finally informed that the two items we had selected were no longer on the menu. We were psyched, they sounded delicious. Big let down, and those really should be the first words out of your mouth if the menu is a work in progress.

Now disappointed, we took another look at the menu, and a look around the room at what other people were ordering. A few things appeared to be missing from the menu. "Specials?" I asked the server. "Oh yes of course" and she listed them off. This was her fourth visit to the table. Again, huge time sink.

We finally settled on an app and a couple entrees. All delicious. Brussels were tasty but spicy, and unfortunately my water glass ran dry and it was hard to get our server's attention. When you go check on one table, please please check on a few others before running back to ring in an order. When you drop a spicy dish, it's a good bet the waters will need a refill shortly.

Also a quick note on the burger. Fantastic, but came out without the cheese we ordered. By that point we were late for our after dinner plans and didn't want to fix it. Not clear whose fault, didn't matter.

Again I hope this is all taken constructively. Food and beer were fantastic. Ambiance is great. We will return and have high hopes for this place, but they really need to tighten up the service (at least with...

Based on the beer and food alone, this would be a 4- or 5-star review (I'm especially a fan of the BBQ pulled pork mac & cheese). However, the service leaves a lot to be desired. I've been here probably 6-8 times now since it opened several years ago, and have had consistent experiences each visit (very good food, good beer, so-so service), but this most recent trip stood out. From the inexperienced and seemingly confused hostess, to our inattentive waitress, to a very slow bar & kitchen, what started as a 6:30pm dinner with a friend turned into us basically closing the place.

Despite it not being very busy for a Thursday night, it took the hostess about 10 minutes to figure out where to seat us and the larger party ahead of us (we had a reservation for outside, but the weather report had changed and it now looked like rain). When we did finally sit down (inside), it was about 10-15min before the waitress arrived to take our drink orders, and then another 5-10min for our beers to be served. We admittedly didn't help the situation, as we were chatting away with a lot to catch up on, and weren't prepared with our food order when the drinks finally arrived. Eventually putting in an appetizer (which took about 30min to come out), we then didn't see our server again for quite a while. Other staff refilled our drinks a couple times and eventually cleared our appetizer plates, but we were busy talking and by the point we realized how much time had gone by and flagged down our waitress to order entrees, it was around 8:45pm. She returned moments later to inform us that the kitchen had closed for the night, and we would have to re-order off of the "late night" menu (which didn't include the burgers we originally ordered, as the grill was closed). We certainly weren't in a hurry, and the (2nd choice) food we ordered was all very good as always (especially that pulled pork mac & cheese... wow), but by no means was I expecting to walk out of there at 10pm having arrived at 6:30pm.

Previous visits had never been that bad, but service has always been an issue here, and it's a shame because the food and beer are so good. I hope they work on improving the experience for patrons, but it will be a little while before I...

The only thing about the place was the guy at the front door, who was very nice to us. First of all, on a Saturday night more than a half of their menu was gone, we could order only burgers and salads. Then the waitress started messing up things... We ordered cheese for the burgues, non of us got the cheese. I told the waitress about it so we would not be charged for that. We were charged for the cheese!! So then the food arrived, my burger and bun were blacked burned! I ordered medium well... I ordered pickles for the side thinking that it was either fries or pickles for free. I got fried pickles somehow? ok... The lady dropped all the fried pickles on my husband. Got me some more. I was charged for the fried pickles? I asked the waitress, "Wasn't pickles free on the menu???" She said "no, I forgot to mention that to you". Not happy with her answer I got the menu again and it said fries + pickles for free as your side or this this and that for $$$. I went to the nice guy on the front door and told him what happened. He said that since I asked for pickles, the waitress understood fried pickles? I told him if both fries and pickles come for free, why did my husband got only fries and I got nothing? not fries or normal pickles? He kept telling me how the waitress misunderstood it. I was like, but man, where is fried pickles on the menu?? It's not even there, where did she find fried pickles??? I just do not want to pay for it, it was not my mistake. After a few minutes going back and forth he finally took the amount off of the bill. Just mentioning something that I hate as well… I got the bill a way before I was done eating! This really makes me lose my appetizer. Definitely not the best experience at all. And by the end my husband paid a good tip for her????? saying that would be incorrect to pay less????? She was luck I did not sign the receipt!

The beer was actually fine! not...