Hardware Sustainable Gastropub and Brewery — Restaurant in Aurora Township

My Daughter asked to try this place after driving by it a few times and looking it up. We loved the organic approach & were interested. Right off the bat I was already irritated when I asked for a cocktail they didn't list on their TINY "house cocktail" menu and the bar refused to make it for me. It had 2 ingredients in it and was actually exactly the same as one of their options. All that was required was to swap a liqueur for Amaretto....? They said it was too busy for them to make something "off menu". 🤔 They bragged about having over 1000 whiskeys and bourbons but only had about 8 or so cocktails they would consider making? I could only find 1 lager on the beer list & it was light beer & after asking the waiter about it he admitted he thought that was the only one. It seemed like every entrée started out great but had a twist thrown in that was out of place. It was an obvious but weak attempt to put their stamp on these recipes. I'll say out of the 5 of us it was a mixed bag of satisfaction. I liked my entre but others weren't happy with theirs and though the flavor was okay most everybody's food, though not cold were at best warm & definitely not hot. They definitely didn't need to warn anybody about touching a hot plate. We were seated in an area that had plastic and fabric walls and it was 50⁰ outside. The heat was not on so that didn't do anything but help the Luke warm food get cold fast. Looking forward, just fyi ... I noticed there was no accomodations for Air-conditioning. That'll be a huge issue when it's 90⁰ out and high humidity. Yes, this isn't a positive review but I do think this place has a lot of potential. They just need to work out a lot of kinks, like the narrow hall by the host desk where customers waiting to be seated had to share with exiting customers. Very tight quarters. Also the out of place additions in some of their recipes. The Chicken roulade with Chorizo & cornbread? The Chorizo is way out of place on this menu. (Just my opinion) Try some fresh vegetables and an orange juice & BBQ sauce instead? Maybe offer some of these ingredients on the side? Or maybe replace a couple? That is TBD. I think they're onto something great here but it's a work in progress. The waiter was knowledgeable, polite and accommodating. He did a great job. I hope this is taken as constructive and not an insult. I gave this a 2 star because of the average between the food and the atmosphere along with the uncooperative bartender. The 5 star service rating is based solely on the waiter. The host seemed confused as well. He asked our party 3 times if we had a reservation. Verified it 3 times and we were standing directly in front of him the whole time. Like I said, it was a very small entry. I know this review is quite long, but it's because I think this place has potential and I think if they listen to their customers and adapt accordingly. This could be a an extremely successful restaurant. There's a lot of potential here but nobody likes lazy bartenders, a cold seating area or...

I read amazing reviews on Yelp and Google about this place so I was super excited to try the food and drinks. Especially after learning that this restaurant is run by the same people who run The Turf Room, which my husband and I have been to before and loved! I had a group of 15 people this past Saturday to celebrate my 30th birthday. We did let the gentleman, John, who took the reservation know and he told us that there would be a free dessert for my birthday. Great, and also pretty standard at any restaurant. So we had Lisa as our server. She was nice enough, but very, very, very slow. It was a busy night and she did have a lot of tables so we chalked it up to that. But we sat down at 7:30 and she didn't come take our food orders until 8:45. The food and drinks were spectacular so absolutely no complaints there.

When it came to the bills, she got most of them wrong. We all had looked at the menu online before even coming in, and according to Lisa, the prices with the online menu were not updated. She had the manager honor the website price of $28 for the lamb shank, even though she tried to charge $32. Then everyone else who had questions about their bill, she ignored. One friend got a couple glasses of Moscato and was charged $10/glass even though it says $8 on the website. Another friend bought a bottle of the same Moscato listed for $28 on the website and was charged $34 instead. Again, when they pointed it out she just said that's what the price is now, and didn't even speak to her manager about it. Four of our friends only had drinks, albeit quite a few drinks. As they were walking out the door Lisa had the audacity to stop them and ASK FOR MORE TIP after they had already tipped her. Yet another friend had additional drinks added to their bill that they didn't even get that she had to remove. It was quite the mess.

Half our group left at this point, and my husband realizes they never brought out the birthday dessert so he tells Lisa. That was the only bad thing I had eaten at the restaurant - what looks like chocolate covered ho-hos. Then as my husband and I are leaving, which at this point the restaurant was mostly empty since we had stayed longer than other people, Lisa says she forgot to give us our bill. We didn't even realize in all the commotion of people paying and leaving. So my husband and I wait and she tells us that she took off the dessert as a courtesy to us as if she is doing us a favor, even though John had told us that would be complimentary anyways when we made the reservation.

All in all, we left EXTREMELY disappointed in the service. The two stars are solely for the food and drinks as they were the only good part of our experience, minus...

I really wanted to like this place, as it’s a short drive from home, but unfortunately the food is under par in comparison to its presentation and price, it just doesn’t meet expectations. Not one in our party of five found any of the food to be especially good, and in fact, one of the appetizers should have been sent back: the poutine.

The sausage in the poutine was so salty, it ruined the dish and quite honestly, we should have sent it back, it was nearly inedible. As I am just one guy, and I didn’t try everything, I won’t say anything about food I did not personally eat, but I will say that we unanimously agreed that we would not come back.

The “Fish and Chip” had no chips, as it was just a bed of miniature baked potatoes, as you can see in the photo. This dish was underwhelming and at $30, the price ruined things, if it had been $20, I wouldn’t complain about it. It was just very basic, not at all special.

My favorite thing, after having tried the bison burger, fish and chip entree, and the poutine, ended up being the brisket tacos. While the tacos were not amazing, they really tasted like something an abuela would feed you at a family barbecue, I would have been happy eating it for $18 as my entree, but it didn’t really hit the spot at a restaurant, similar to everything else.

Pretty much every whiskey was over $10 an oz. A standard shot is 1.5oz, so you’re set up to feel like you’ve been shorted.

The beer appears to me to be the main thing this place has going for it besides the atmosphere, which, I will not lie, is chill but hipsteresque. The way they brag about saving rainwater to use on greens that they grow themselves, I like it, it’s a nice thought, but it really only complements the vibe I get from this place, which is a pretentious one. They have great presentation, and the place is beautiful, but the prices are high and the quality of the food is not good enough to justify that. Maybe we are just not the demographic that this establishment is meant to appeal to. Personally, I see this as a place where you grab a few beers and move on somewhere else for food and more drinks.

Unfortunately, my recommendation is that if you are just coming for the food, I would pass...