Burger Shed Restaurant Altoona — Restaurant in Altoona

Drove from Waukee since we've eyeballed this restaurant a few times on our way to Bass Pro. We were pretty excited. Right away though, we were pretty unimpressed when the host tried to seat us at a clearly dirty table on the patio and seemed annoyed when I pointed it out (im talking very obvious drink rings and crumbs and stickiness). He sat us at a different table where we didn't see our server for about 10 minutes. She came and took our drink order and appetizer order and said she would be back with kid menus (since the host didnt seem to notice our party of 4 included 2 children). She made 3 stops back. First to drop off the appetizer plates, then to drop off the kid menus, then our appetizer came out and then the manager came by to offer to take our drink order (we declined since we had already given our order to our server) and then finally, our drinks. The appetizer, cheesesteak egg rolls, were bland. Mush served in an egg roll wrapper and doused in sweet chili sauce. Nothing exciting. The same for the food. The fries were uneventful, good texture but no taste. The chicken on my salad was cold, so I guess it isn't "made to order" and it was like they cooked it, put it in the fridge and then covered it in some kind of flavorless seasoning before putting it on the salad. The dressing was also uneventful and while it wasn't bad, per se, it lacked any kind of excitement and tasted like iceberg lettuce and really good tomatoes. I couldn't taste the black bean salsa in it at all. My fiancé got a regular burger ( which, I agree is pretty plain ) but being that the restaurant is called " Burger Shed " you would think that their regular burger would be mentionable at best. The table next to ours were 2 older couples who were waited on by the manager most of the time, but were interpreted so many times between the manager waiting on the table and the server just trying to touch the table enough to say she'd been there. So, that was just something I noticed on top of everything else. And then, I asked for the bill, tipped 20% because I am former industry and that's just what we do. And THEN I moved my soda glass so I could clean up a bit and noticed that I had drank my whole first soda out of a disgustingly dirty glass. .. which was the icing on the cake for me to write this review. I think Sam needs a little training on how to make her steps count. I.E. bring me the kids menus and drinks and app plates all at the same time and save yourself some steps, girl so that your manager doesn't have to wait on your tables while you sit back and hopefully collect 20% at a table you didn't serve at all. And, a simple apology for not greeting your table for 10 minutes can go a long way! I've waited a lot of patios and know how easy it is to get backed up out there, but at least acknowledge it! If I would have noticed my my dirty glass before I tipped, I wouldn't have left much, so you lucked out this time. The manager was doing a great job supporting her staff though, so I've got to point that out!

Lastly, nothing you can do about it now, but the interstate kind of ruins the atmosphere of the pond 🫤.

We will...

I made a reservation for a surprise birthday party a week prior and I called day of to confirm my reservation but they seemed to have lost it, that’s fine I understand things like that happen I was able to rebook it same day. However while my party was waiting for the surprisee to show up our waitress (Amber) approached the table very abruptly and with an attitude very rudely asked “is the rest of your party showing up soon cause you only have a 2 hour time slot.” Obviously I’m confused as that was not disclosed to me over the phone the 3 times I had spoke to the restaurant while making my reservations nor is it disclosed on the website also I was taken back by the attitude and disrespect. She then brought the manager (Victoria) over whom had a worse attitude and proceeded to talk down to me, belittle me and argue with my entire family. When my dad told her to walk away from the table as she was only making things worse and not deescalating she refused and continued to argue with us and at one point told me I was being “hostile” when everybody in my party can confirm I was not in the slightest being “hostile”. I could tell by the way the manager had approached the situation and the way she was speaking to me and cutting me off that her mind was already made up and that she was not actively listening to me as it was going in one ear and out the other. It’s unfortunate that the manager (Victoria) upset my parents enough that they left and were not present for the surprise party. It is obvious that they only cared about being able to flip the tables as quickly as possibly and not about guest service or hospitality. I wish I could say the experience eventually got better but it did not as we were met with further attitude and lack luster customer service. Nothing was resolved and the least that could’ve been done was an apology. Also the Burger Shed should reevaluate who they put in managerial roles. Unfortunately I will not recommend anybody to dine at the Burger Shed especially if you have a...

Cool building with lakeside view. Bad service and subpar food.

First things first, the service sucked. Waited at our table for 15 min before the waiter showed up and said “I’m sorry, I was busy with some other people but I’ll pay attention to you now I promise”. So basically acknowledging that he ignored us or didn’t send someone else over.

We then ordered our food and got 2 waters. The waters had gunk in them. White flecks of something. The cups were dirty and you could scrape the white film off of them into the water (see video). Got replacements and same issue although reduced amount of white flecks at least.

Girlfriend and I got Philly Cheesesteak egg rolls for an appetizer. I used to work at Quiktrip and it tasted exactly like the beef taquitos we sold there but with some horseradish sauce drizzled on it.

We both ordered burgers because it’s a burger place so of course we did. I like a McDonald’s Big Mac on occasion so I decided to get their BS Mac hoping it would be a superior version with a side of coleslaw. The girlfriend got mushroom Swiss burger with side of fries.

The coleslaw was great. I like coleslaw and almost always get coleslaw when I can at restaurants and it was a good one. The fries were also good and crispy.

The problem with the burgers is that they taste very bland. It tastes like burger and bun only. I got the BS Mac but it has very little lettuce and the sauce couldn’t be tasted what so ever. The mushroom Swiss had the same issue, mushrooms were flavorless resulting in two burgers that were meat and bread. The worst part: the bottom buns of both our burgers were liquified. It was like a moon pie drenched in grease. Half way through eating the burgers we were holding onto a burger patty not a bun for the bottom half. In addition, the pickles which are put to the side of the burger taste like.. cinnamon? Cinnamon pickles? What the hell is that.

I simply cannot recommend this place and if it’s like this all the time I don’t know how...