The Old Bakery Beer Company — Restaurant in Alton

K. Not even sure where to begin here. There were maybe 12 people seated on the dining floor and at the bar combined. It was a Saturday around 2pm. Not busy at all. There were about 5 or 6 wait staff standing around the bar, plus the hostess, and bartender. Plenty of help. Not sure why it took 37 minutes for our $7 pretzel with beer cheese to come out. When it did however, it was served with nacho cheese. Like spicy movie theater or shopping mall nacho cheese. The menu clearly stated beer cheese with no mention of a nacho option. If that is however the way your beer cheese is, just rename it. Ive made, served and ordered beer cheese for years. I could poor yours over shredded chicken flautas and a Mexican grandmother would be fooled. We asked the waiter where the beer cheese was and she said, that is beer cheese. Then just turned and walked away. No further concern or offer to double check if the kitchen ran out. Pretty sure she just lied based on her attitude. And the fact that well, it was nacho cheese lol. We were also ready to order our meal but instead of asking after we talked about the beer cheese she just left again. We waited for her to return to our table after watching her sit on a bar stool with other staff just sipping water and talking. HELLO?! We finally order. Sandwiches. Mine was a turkey club with bacon. My fiancee's was something with turkey and mustard. She brings it to our table after another 30ish minutes- not sure why it takes so long for this place to whip up two basically grilled cheese sandwiches with only 12 customers and plenty of staff but wth- and she gives us the wrong food. We eventually get the right food and my sandwich mysteriously had a ton of extra roast beef on it? Along with turkey and bacon lol. I dont eat beef. It's why I ordered what I did. How do you mistake putting roast beef on a freagin turkey club? We were never checked on during our meal and instead enjoyed the view of our waiter and all the other staff sitting at the bar talking. We waited so long after she brought us the pay book that I finally started openly complaining at my table and when a staff member walked by she overheard me and grabbed our pay book from the table for our waitress to FINALLY check out. I regret leaving a tip. Advice, train your staff. And if you can't, then hire someone who can. My god our waiter didn't even know what to do after we ordered and tried to hand her our menus. She looked at us like, okay not sure what I'm supposed to do with these....

We felt like a burden and will not...

I'm a big fan of their space, but have had a fairly lackluster experience and so-so food each time I've been here. But, my experience last weekend was probably the worst.

In summary: We put in our name with the hostess for lunch (it was about 1:00 PM on a Saturday) for a small table and were given a vague update that it would "be a little bit" with no further explanation, although we could see that there were about 7-8 open and clean tables with no one seated at them - so we were hopeful. We decided to stay put, and ended up waiting about 30 minutes to get seated. So, we started off on kind of a bad foot.

We made sure we had our order ready as soon as we sat down since we had already waited a while and were trying to keep our 1-year old entertained and happy. We ordered immediately.

Our fairly simple orders - a burger and the sandwich special - took another 30 minutes before coming to the table. So, at that point, we had been there over an hour before receiving our food. We ate as fast as we could, chased the waiter down to pay, and then left promptly to avoid a pending meltdown from our toddler who had had enough of the delay as well.

In short, what could have and should have been a fun, laid back experience left us feeling exceptionally frustrated. My wife "joked" that we were going to die there. It definitely started to feel that way.

Unfortunately, I think this is the last time we give this place a chance.

Both the front-of-house and back-of-house must have been grossly understaffed. Management should absolutely take heed, as we were clearly not the only family frustrated by the exceedingly slow turn, as we could see the same situation happening at the other tables around us and on the faces of the families waiting near the hostess stand for a table - again, even though many tables were open and at that point we were well past what would be considered any sort of lunch rush.

I would only recommend this place to a friend if they were looking only to order a beer at the bar. Otherwise, I would unfortunately advise them to stay away at all costs. I want to like this place - but my experiences have been...

I got to check it out last night. The place is absolutely fantastic. My #1 question: How's their Beer? Answer: All six are tasty, drinkable, and worthy of a Craft Beer classification. Craft beer fans will enjoy all of them. Yellow beer drinkers should be able to find at least one they like. There's also a full bar, specialty cocktails, and a few other local craft beers.

The menu is soups, salads, sandwiches, and some appetizers. Definitely plenty of choices to make a full meal. We got the cheese plate and it was very, very good, especially with the beers. Looking forward to trying everything else, what we could see on the other tables looked good.

Service was great. The greeter was friendly, our waiter was knowledgeable and awesome, the other wait staff was friendly, too.

The space itself has a great vibe. Huge, long bar, many big "community" type tables, and plenty of 4-tops as well. The main bar room is gigantic and comfortable, a clean, polished-up version of the old factory it was previously. Bathrooms are shiny, new and clean!

They have growlers available, I left with one full of the India Brown Ale. I really liked the English Pint shaped beer glasses as well.

Bottom Line: Grand Slam Home Run. 5/5 Stars. Top-notch. Highly recommended. I will be back over and over and over again.

Congratulations, Alton, you've really scored a first-class craft beer brewery!

Congratulations, OBB, so far you've done one hell of a great job. All the best...