Al's Tavern — Restaurant in Altoona

OH, how the mighty have fallen!!!

Out to dinner tonight with my buddy. We decided on Al's Tavern. We each ordered a Steak Salad and we split a dozen wings. I prefer the fries on the side, and only eat a few while they are hot. I ordered the wings "super extra well done"!

The wings were gummy...period! End of the wings! They barely got the sauce on the wings. A quarter of the celery and carrots were just tiny little chips, not worth bothering.

The salads arrived. Our steak was not even luke warm. It was cold! I had the waitress touch it and her eyes got wide and apologized profusely! She took both salads away and promised to get them corrected. The steak that I did try to eat was so unbelievably tough, that I spit both bites out and set aside from the original salad. When she returned, it was the same meat on the same salad, warmer and even tougher. I think it had been nuked. They forgot my buddy's fries this time. My fries never went back, so they didn't bring new fries this time. Our disappointment was obvious to our server and she took them away to have completely new salads made. These came "correctly", but the meat was too tough to cut, letalone chew.

The server, I think, was totaly embarrassed or pissed, beause we barely saw her again and another server was waiting on us.

The service was ok. She was friendly and somewhat attentive. But the food was dismal at best. Sorry but there isn't anything that didn't suck!! We were both starved too!! Half decent woulda probably been acceptable! The only fortunate thing was they didn't charge for our salads.

All thumbs down tonight at...

I have lived in Altoona my entire life. I have eaten at Al's for decades. That said, this post is about their attempt at Altoona Hotel pizza. First, no one is ever going to perfect Altoona Hotel's masterpiece. Their dough was what made it. Al's is as close to the original that I have ever tried but they skimp out on the cheese, and green peppers. The salami should be sliced into strips not used as a whole slice, same with the green peppers. The sauce is perfect, slice the peppers and salami and use more than one slice of cheese per cut. For any true fans of Altoona style pizza I reccoI have lived in Altoona my entire life. I have eaten at Al's for decades. That said, this post is about their attempt at Altoona Hotel pizza. First, no one is ever going to perfect Altoona Hotel's masterpiece. Their dough was what made it. Al's is as close to the original that I have ever tried, but they skimp out on the cheese and green peppers. The salami should be sliced into strips, not used as a whole slice, same with the green peppers. The sauce is perfect; slice the peppers and salami and use more than one slice of cheese per cut. For any true fans of Altoona style pizza, I recommend Al's, it is def top 3...

Got a full order (24 wings) and a large bacon-cheese fry. They put the cheese for my fries in its own container so the fries werent soggy. MORE BARS NEED TO ADOPT THIS. They have a 3 alarm wing sauce meter on their menu. 1 Alarm is the lowest of their house hot house. 2 Alarm is a medium sauce, comparable to the heat of Franks Red. 3 Alarm is their hottest. As a hot sauce lover, its nothing too extreme for a heat wing aficionado. But if your heat tolerance is that of the average scale, then the 3 Alarm is something you can put some bets on. They also have the option to make your preferred flavor of wings have one of these heat treatments. I personally got BBQ 3 Alarm wings. Nice and crisp with a moist meaty inside. The wings aren't covered in sauce so if you like to dunk rather than dip, ask for a little extra when ordering. My only one star is that I asked if they could do half and half for the flavors of my wings, since they also have half orders of 12 wings on the menu as well (I wanted 1/2 teriyaki 1/2 BBQ). The answer was no, but I wasn't too hurt. Still got some amazing wings and I come back...