HOMES Brewery - Brewpub — Restaurant in Ann Arbor

I wanted to recount an outing I had at your brewery on Sunday. I very rarely like to give negative reviews. As someone who worked in the food service industry for a decade and continues to work in customer service; I do feel like it's important to give feedback when it is constructive, but also to not be destructive to a business. My intention is to not blast a business and divert people from visiting, but to alert owners or managers of bad experiences.

Our outing was pretty normal. We arrived a little after 11am on Sunday. We got a few drinks and went our table without much thought. I felt like the two bartenders were a little standoffish, but I quickly disregarded the attitude. The start of a shift can be both stressful, busy, and plenty of behind the scenes stuff to deal with.

I went up for a second drink. I stood in line behind another group for about 5 minutes, which is I know we say cut that I half for "customer time". The problem, one employee/bartender behind the bar seemed to be focused on only serving the bar guests and acting like he was busy working on the POS system. Customers should come first, and it felt like he was ignoring a line of customers. but okay separation of duties, so I get it. The other bartender/worker came back and business resumed. NBD, everyone needs a break get some food, use the bathroom, whatever. My group was confused and thought I had left because it had taken me so long.

Okay, now here is my real beef. I go back up to get a last beer, I pull up some to-go beers, merch, and cash out my previous beers. I gave a good tip, I don't know probably almost $30 on about $100. Most of that was to-go beers and a hat I bought. Essentially I paid a %100 tip on three beer pours. I didn't think anything of it during check out. The employee forgets to pour my beer. Not a problem, this was an accident. He probably had 20 other things to worry about. He got a ticket, poured a beer and walked away. I politely informed the remaining bartender that I thought the other guy may have forgotten to pour me my beer. I don't think I said it in a rude way, but I was probably a little confused.

I realize he was busy at the moment prepping another drink, he sort of give this exacerbated head shake and annoyed look as if I was being rude. He told me "yeah it will be a moment". I don't know if I misunderstood the situation or if the original guy was supposed to come back. I meant no offense and I especially did not mean to come off rude, if I did. I mostly just wanted to make sure I would still get my drink, not that he had to stop doing what he said as doing. Afterall, he was making a beverage for a friend in my group. The original guy made an honest mistake.

My intention was to not upset anyone, nor was it to make someone stop what there were doing. I interpreted the situation as if I was accidentally forgotten and I was informing the remaining employee politely of the situation. That being said, I had tip very generously moments prior to this mix-up. Normally I'd let this go. The food was fantastic, the beer was fantastic, everything else was fantastic. The rest of the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like a slap in the face.

I don't want a refund, I don't want anything other than the owner knowing their employee(s) are mistreating or neglecting customers. I took some beers home and wow Linked and Hydra are both amazing. I'll still come back, but maybe next time I'll keep my head down and have other people in my party order for me. At any point, if something I was doing was misinterpreted as offensive, I'd be willing to listen. I'm a pretty introverted person, so this whole thing has me confused, as I would never intend to...

February 2024 update The food has changed. It's still good, but not as good as before. Most of the menu offerings are the same as they were a few years ago, but the preparation is off. The care is still there, but the recipes and technique are just not right. Bran sprouts are raw when they should be blanched. Bulgogi is dry, lacking in fat, overcooked. Bibimbop was served without kimchi. The food was still good and everything was made with great care, but it's not as good as it had been when they dish was made just right. Marinated cucumbers and cauliflower were very good in that same dish. A poke bowl was quite good but contained an excessive amount of flavorless, overly spicy hot slices of jalapeno. On the positive side, everything there used to be woefully lacking in salt. Now things are salted just enough for the flavors to come out.

2022 Very good food. Korean with a little bit of a twist - a little more modern, a little more like bar food and a little more fancy. The beer is good - all made on site, all strong flavored, some very good, others not to my liking. They do a variety of styles and produce some hits and misses.

Located at the edge of a residential neighborhood, the view is of its own parking lot and some houses on the next block. A large part of the seating is outside on long picnic tables in a limestone gravel patio. A whole wall of the seating area is garage doors that open fully to turn the patio and cement floor interior into one large outdoor space.

It's crowded here in the evenings and rather loud despite being partially open to the outside. All beer and food is ordered at the counter and I have always waited in line to order, although never more than a couple of minutes. Beer is handed to you at the bar when you order, food is delivered to the table. The food service has been quite fast every time.

Winter accomodations are nice. They have enclosed all sides of a patio with a heavy tent material and warm it with overhead radiant heaters. Still completely outside they have a yard with gravel, benches,...

I would rate 0 if it were available. We came here to try it at 2 p.m. on a Saturday. There was nowhere to park. We took that as a good sign. We were wrong! There was one table to sit at because the seating configuration is tables for 6. They opened the patio to make more room, but it was 30 degrees and that just made the entire restaurant freezing cold since it IS winter! They have ONLY beer, except for SMOOJ which was a ridiculous $18/ glass for 10 oz.! This is a bar, not a place to eat. You have to wait in a ridiculous line to order drinks and food. The line was too long, so my husband ordered one beer and done. He would have drank more, but he didn't want to wait in the long line again. The person who took our order double charged us for our food order and he had to wait in line to get it corrected. The servers appeared rude. We asked them for water and a box and they walked away each time. Maybe the music was just too loud, but we did yell the third time which got their attention. They have a very small menu that is horrible. You had better like white rice because it is heavy in everything that they serve. The food is not tasty. I had a burrito because they recommended it as the best item on the menu and just about everything else had fried egg on it. The burrito had tons of rice and some barbecues meat and about 5 French fries. It was no good. Don't waste your money eating here. The food is expensive and doesn't taste good. They need a new menu. This place is all about drinking beer in an industrial building. Don't waste your time or money here. There are so many places es to choose...