Cedar Falls Brown Bottle — Restaurant in Cedar Falls

As a tradition, my wife and I eat at the Cedar falls brown bottle on our anniversary. Which is today. Today was such a disappointment and I’m very upset about it, sorry but it’s our day and you messed up, had a chance to fix it and then screwed us. We love 45 mins away in Eldora. We had reservations and were so excited for tonight because it’s always so great. I ordered prime rib, it came out completely grey and well done. No worries, a mistake. Politely asked for a medium rare piece like I ordered. He brings it right away and it’s even more well done than the first one. We’re talking grey all the way through. Now I’m a little frustrated, just take it off the bill because my wife is almost done eating. She gets full after eating about 15 percent of it, as women do 🤣. (We had an appetizer and she had a salad). We asked for a box and the bill. He took her plate to box up the food for her, 85 percent of her $23 pasta dish. He returns with the bill and basically runs away while my wife is asking where her food is, he didn’t hear or ignored. We waited a few minutes and didn’t see him, so we just left. So here we are having paid $50 for an appetizer, 15 percent of a pasta dish and 2 soft drinks. Apparently they charged me for the sides I picked at while waiting for my prime rib to come back. When we got in the car and I could tell that my wife was upset and nearly in tears because I didn’t get to eat and she didn’t get to take her pasta home, she specifically wanted to eat it in bed tonight while we watched love on the spectrum. I called the restaurant. I never have done that before and I’m very forgiving when it comes to these things, not today. The manager straight up lied and said it was not their fault, maybe it was the lighting. Uhm sir, it was grey, that’s not the light. I had to interupt his line of excuses to ask him “did it look like the picture on the menu? Does it look like any prime rib you’ve ever seen before?” He couldn’t aswer. And he didn’t even acknowledge my wife not getting her food to go. He claims to be comping the bill but does that get my anniversary dinner back? No. If he’d have just admitted like I’m sorry all we had left was extra well done, I’m sorry we tried to pawn it off on you, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t be typing this novel. But no, he wants to lie and make excuses. So that’s what type of place it is. Still super pissed obviously. Edit: still tipped $10 because I’m...

We had reservations for 7 last Saturday night. When we arrived we were shown right to a door that led to an old cement basement, with a steep, dimly lit staircase. When I looked down there I said out loud that I don’t really want to go down those steps. The server didn’t hear me and was telling me to go ahead, so I started down slowly and carefully. It was easer to see the top stairs, because of the restaurant lights, but as I nearer the bottom I couldn’t see anything as a result of both poor lighting and my glasses still being dark from being outside. I thought I was at the bottom, but I wasn’t, so I stepped out instead of down and ended up tumbling down about four steps landing on a cement floor. I should mention that I’m 80. The server asked me if I was ok, of course I didn’t know at that point, everything hurt. I made it to the table with help and realized that we had to sit on high bar stools with no backs and I had to prop my bad leg up on another high bar stool. Very uncomfortable! We ordered and ate. The food was just ok, but my son didn’t like what he had and didn’t eat much. The server asked me again if I was ok, and I think I told him that my knee and foot hurt pretty bad. It was hard getting up the steps, but made it with help. When we got upstairs everyone was staring at us and I’m sure that management didn’t like that! One of our party asked if we could get a bag with some ice in it for our drive home. I thought it might help with swelling. It was over an hour drive. The answer was a zinger. “We don’t have any bags here” and not another word! Unbelievable! The manager never came and talked to us or said anything! I know they were trying really hard to act like nothing had even happened. I wish I could do that! Well I had to go get x-rays and luckily nothing is broken, but both my knee and my foot are badly sprained and my leg muscles. It will take me a long time to heal. Sadly, that will be the last time...

We love the Waterloo Brown Bottle but it was closed today. We decided to try the Cedar Falls restaurant since we were in the area. We did not have a reservation and it was a busy night there.

We had no wait and were told to follow the hostess to get seated. Unfortunately, the only seating appeared to be up a flight of stairs. My husband and I are both in our 70's and I am scheduled to have a knee replacement in 2 months.

He made it fine but I really struggled with the stairs. We didn't know about the stairs until we saw them and the hostess was already part way up. So I kept going.

We were seated and our waiter was right there. Our salad was merely a bowl of iceberg lettuce with dressing. No tomato, onion or anything else with it. And we each got one piece of bruschetta bread that had been toasted sometime ago. It was soft in the middle and had no taste. Our lasagna was pretty good. Thankfully. With our order, we were each given 1 piece of garlic bread that was stale and also soggy. Husband's glass of wine was good.

Worse part is that our server never asked if everything was all right. If we needed anything else, etc. He was polite but certainly not friendly. He wanted to clear the table off and get the money.

The only bathroom was downstairs- wish I would have known that earlier- so we took turns using them before we left. We stood right next to the hostess stand with 2 young girls there chatting away. They didn't even ask us if we enjoyed our meals.

It was a bad experience for 2 people who love Brown Bottle. I can guarantee we will never drive that far again unless we know that the Waterloo Brown Bottle is open. I hope this is helpful for any one choosing between...