Old City Hall Brewery — Restaurant in City of Oswego

My family and I were in Oswego for high school event and we planned on being early to Old City Hall Brewery so that we would be arriving early to our event. We arrived at OCHB roughly at 2:45 pm. We were seated right when we got there and were alerted to the fact there was a large party currently being served and that service might take a little bit. I was a little shocked because aside for one table with out 15-20 people, the place was virtually empty. Once our orders were taken, it took a very long time for just our appetizers to come, which amounted to two orders of chicken wings and a salad. At the time the appetizers came, I placed a take home order of a hamburger for my son who was not with us at dinner. The dinner orders took even longer to arrive. Both appetizer and dinners orders were placed at the same time. Once most of the food came, my kids got to finish there food, which were appetizer sized food, but my burger arrived much later and I had to asked for a take home box because by now we were way behind in time. After paying for my bill early on, I was standing by the kitchen waiting for the take home burger. The wait time for food is horrible. Simply horrible. Thankfully, the venue for our event was close by, but even with planning for an early dinner failed, not because of our timing, but the extremely slow food service at OCHB.

Now for the food. The french fries and chicken fingers were good. The burger, even though I ordered it medium rare, came well done. I could not say anything about it because by the time I got to eat it we were already at the event. The burger was just this thick mass of beef. Put that together with a small sized bun and you had to smash the crap out of it just to barely make it in your mouth. If I knew the burger was going to be served like this, I would not have ordered the burger. It was also pretty plain tasting and not worth the price. The chicken wings. Although they were deep fried on the ok side of things, the buffalo wing sauce was watery and had zero taste, did not cover the wing, and did not coat the wing. It looked like just a bunch of melted butter with a d few dashes of red hot. Absolutely not representative of a Buffalo wing sauce wing. Simply a bad chicken wing and burger experience. To OCHBs credit. The staff were very polite and cordial. The manager did take the cost of the one burger off of our bill, which is the first basic action to do for extremely bad food service.

Not sure what issued OCHB is having in the kitchen area, but there is much to be worked on and fixed. The food reminded me more of a place you go to just to put food in your belly on your last stop from a bar crawl, not a place to sit and have a really enjoyable food experience. My family and I were very disappointed.

We ordered food at 2:52 pm and we were rushing out the door at approximately 4:50 pm.

Evaluating other reviews with OCHB replies to customer comments, many simply state they will follow up and they are actively working on improving both service and the kitchen timing. Not sure if they are working on improving on those initiatives...

My family and I were huge fans of the original old city hall restaurant, it was so exciting to see it reopen and the restoration of such a historic building in our town is a service to all of us! The inside remodel is gorgeous, all the food and drinks were delicious as well. However I HAVE to say, the service yesterday night was insultingly terrible. I have personally worked in food service for 4 years and bartending for the last 2, I understand the struggle and rush, however Me and my sisters were waiting at the bar making eye contact with the bar staff for a long time, (we do NOT expect immediate service, we’re very mindful of service workers!) but when my sisters boyfriend came to the bar he was served immediately. The waitresses did not crack a smile or make any effort to be friendly when I was finally served. I tipped her 5$ on a nine dollar drink, and let me say I regret it so much. It was impossible to get another drink, the two bar tenders were on the other side of the bar eating cheese sticks while my 6 person party waited. (The bar was one hour away from closing time at this point) I finally walked to the end of the bar and asked directly to be served, was again treated very coldly. This is not the kind of staff you want at a beautiful place like this, excited to come back once the staff is retrained. This is not written out of spite, I just feel me and my family were treated...

Came here for the first time shortly after it opened and had a bad experience. With a reservation, we still had to wait over an hour for our table. And then all of the food ended up being inedible. But staff was so nice and didn't charge us for our entrees. We said we understood because they were still trying to figure things out. Went last weekend with a friend to get a drink and utilize the patio which looks very nice and like a good place to hang out. It took us forever to get a drink (it was not busy) and there also were very limited options, and some of the options they usually have weren't in stock. I wasn't crazy about the service either as it was slow and there was a misunderstanding about my change but the girls were really nice when they weren't blowing us off.

It's unfortunate because this is a great space with a sentimental place in many local peoples' hearts and it's clear they put a lot of money into the restoration but I just don't think they have what it takes to keep this place up...