44 North — Restaurant in Altoona

10/10 Highly recommend, do not miss this place. Detailed review below: Walking in: Exceptionally clean, wide open space with a great game selection. Imagine yourself walking into a squeaky clean Chuck E. Cheese with a way better atmosphere (prizes included). Seating: Before we made it to the host stand, there was a waitress on her way to meet us. We were asked our preference of seating, as there were a few options available. We indicated no preference and were seated at a standard 4 person table. Atmosphere: Very clean industrial warehouse feel going on. The entire top of the bar, and the walls were filled well with a ton of televisions with all manner of sports. They were also decent TVs, at least a notch above most sports bar-type places I've been. Ordering: Menus were nice, and there were enough choices to feel like I had a good amount of options, but I did not feel bogged down. There were two double sided menu cards. One organized for bar, one organized for lunch. Within a min of putting our menus away, waitress took out order. We ordered a couple of soft drinks and buffalo chicken rolls. Shortly after we started on our appetizer, we were checked on and we ordered our mains. A dozen traditional wings for me, a dozen boneless for the lady. Food: Buffalo chicken rolls were quite good. Buffalo sauce, cheese, and perfectly cooked chicken wrapped in fried wantons. They were served with a decent blue cheese. It wasn't that top tier funky stuff, but it was decent quality and thick. I think there were 8 rolls total. Struck me as a decent value. My wings though, they were unreal. When they came out, I was blown away. Based on the menu and price, I thought I was getting a dozen wingdings. What I got was twelve big, meaty wings. Six were a coated with a smokey Siracha dry rub, and the other half, a Caribbean mango sauce. They were crispy, perfectly fried, and served with celery and the same blue cheese from before. The rub was on point and didin't make the wings feel like sandpaper (as dry rubs often do). The mango was also very good: A nice upfront mango sweetness balanced by a hint of heat. Just enough so that you would say to yourself, "Oh, it's got a bit of kick, nice." Comments on service: I had three refills on my soda during the meal. My waitress must have had laser vision because as soon as my drink hit the top of the ice, she was right there asking if I wanted another. They did not originally give us little plates for our appetizer, but on the check-back shorty after we got it, we asked for them and we got them right away; not bad. Comments on presentation: For a dozen quality wings, I'd only gotten four half-pieces of celery. Yet, I'd gotten three two ounce cups of Blue Cheese. I would have expected a bit more celery. That said, when I asked to have my remaining wings boxed up, the waitress put them in two separate boxes each with brand new cups of blue cheese and more celery. That was unexpected, and also fantastic. Games: Again, great selection, and really clean, but I was not there for games on this particular occasion. In all, a nice place. Damn good food at a reasonable value. Nice atmosphere. Service was on the ball. A legit 5 star, don't pass...

So, this evening the service was very good and the staff friendly. However the food fell quite short. I ordered the Black and Blue Steak, medium. The entree came with vegetables and a baked mac and cheese. Going low carb, I wanted to swap the mac and cheese with their mushrooms. According to the sides menu, the shrooms and mac are identical in value. I had done this before without issue and really enjoyed the meal.

This time, they said that the sides are now 'paired' with the entree through the chef's culinary training....so to stray from that an extra $4 was needed for swap. I'm not clear how the $4 pairs with said training, perhaps for the chef's hurt feelings....not sure I will ever know. I stuck with the script and took it as-is. Another $4 on top of the $20 meal wasn't somewhere i wanted to go.

The cheese curd appetizer was very good. Had a garlic seasoning that was a nice touch.

Minor issue - while we waited they came by with somebody elses food, hindsight i should have lied and said it was ours - as that steak she sent in front of me was different but looked real good.

So the meals arrived after a longer than typical wait...so we appreciated the curds all the more. My wife's fried chicken sandwich was decent. Apparently my daughter's pork nachos went down the stairs en route to the table and had to be remade. Fortunately I had mac and cheese to give to her in the interim. Unfortunately she said the mac and cheese was bland...had no sauce-like cheese to it. A serving of dry yellowed noodles with parmesean sprinkled on top.

My sauteed vegetables were the best of the meal. The sauce on the steak was excellent like before but that steak was on the grill 15 minutes past well done. Another 5 minutes of heat it would have been beef jerky. They politely offered to remake it, but at this point I didnt want to wait any longer. When you go no carbs patience takes a back seat. So my jaw got a workout chewing.

My daughters nachos arrived later. The serving was absolutely huge! The cheese and jalapeno sauce was very good, but the pulled pork topping was just that - plain pulled pork. There was a healthy serving of it, but the meat was bland.

The staff were very friendly through the whole ordeal - felt a bit sorry for them there seemed to be some discord. They discounted the steak and took some $ off the nachos for the timing & tumble issue. That was appreciated.

I'm not saying we won't go back, but might be awhile...

My family of 4 came in for dinner at 7pm on a Wednesday to celebrate my birthday with a $50 gift card to use. My husband ordered beef tips, my teen boys each got the lobster mac & cheese. I’m a vegetarian, gluten free and dairy free (so that can be problematic to eat out at times). I informed the server of my dietary restrictions and after a number of questions (because the menu doesn’t list GF/DF) I settled on building my own burger with a veggie burger, avocado, fried egg and buffalo sauce on a GF bun. The server suggested a side salad because the fries aren’t GF and the coleslaw may contain dairy. Our food took about 45 minutes to arrive so we were quite hungry by the time it arrived. The server set down my salad and then realized that it had cheese on it. She offered to replace it, but I was hungry so just said it was fine and chose to eat around it. After she left I noticed that my burger was missing the egg but by the time she came back to check on us, our meals were nearly gone. I informed her of the missing ingredient and asked if I could still get the egg, which she did bring, but my burger (and everyone else’s food) were eaten by then so I ate an unseasoned, overeasy egg while everyone watched and waited. We asked for the check and offered the gift card but she told us it was too old (I received it 10/2023) and that it couldn’t be used at all. (That’s why we chose this restaurant for dinner, so that was quite disappointing). I was also not offered any discount for the errors with my meal (I feel that she could have comped the egg at least). The other guests’ meals were reportedly “mid” (if you aren’t a Gen Z-er, that’s not a term to describe something you would want...