Thunder and Buttons II — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

The ONLY reason I am giving 2 Stars is because the young man that greeted us was nice. It was a very busy day (Sat) 1st Day of Territory Days, so we understood the wait, and how busy our server may be. We work in service and are very patient and kind.

However, a server walked by and my husband asked a question and she snapped at him. OK, your busy, but please be nice. Then she ends up being our server. We should have left right then, but given the Day we were understanding. We had to take two tables which ended up two different sections, so now I cant share a bill with my husband and because they are being served by the other waitress. ?? We get our drinks and she needs our order, We didnt even have but one menu for table so we needed a min. Then she never really came back till we flagged her down. Once our order was in, I asked my husbands table were you able to order food. They said NO, so I waved their waitress down and explained they needed to order as we'd like our food about the same time. Note: their table was next to ours. She said she'd try but they're busy. So now we wait for our food. About 5 minutes later, my husbands waitress comes to me and says good news, "your waitress had a couple things to do before putting your order in, so it all got put in at the same time"...... I'm thinking O.K. whatever your busy, we are trying to patient and understand the circumstances. So we finally get our food. Its O.K. at this point we are just hungry and want to be done with the whole experience. I've watched another table turnover twice(drinks, order,fed and paid) all while we are just starting to eat ours. same waitress (ours). So now we are done eating, and needing boxes and bills..(party of 6, 3 bills).... crickets...so we helped ourself to our own boxes and bags so when we finally get our bill we could get out of there. Well...I go to box my Pretzle (which I felt was frozen to thawed to partially baked while eating and runny watered down cheese) and I move my cheese bowl to pick up the pretzle and it was still cold from being frozen. Im pretty sure my cheese bowl completed the thaw. Gross. It was $14 and not even heated up all the way. It was so big I never got to the frozen part till packing it to go home. BY now I don't even want to complain, because anything we tried to talk about with the servers was a hassle/a problem /an excuse. It get's worse. On top of the Living Wage Charge(understandable) they charged us 20% gratuity on each bill. Our party of 6 was split between 2 waitresses at 2 different tables. And if my husband wouldn't have noticed the other two bills would have tipped more on top of that. Listen if the service and food would have been better, 20% is what we normally Tip, even more sometimes...but this was Bad Service and a Bad Food Experience. Yes it was busy, but food should be HOT, even my Elk Chili was just WARM, Servers should be friendly, and you should never be forced to TIP 20% (there was 3 people at each table). It's really sad to, because your place came recommended to me and I was very excited to try it. 12:10 pm 5/27/23 $63 + change for 2/ Pretzles, Cheesburger & Fries and Cup of Elk Chili $18+change for a Pepsi, a Mixed...

I went with my small group of friends on Friday night for some karaoke.

The decor in the bar feels very "rustic Colorado." The staff was friendly and very pleasant. While it was disappointing that there was no upstairs bathroom, it wasn't too hard to go downstairs. That being said, the stalls in the women's room don't have fully functioning locks. Which is a bit worrisome.

Getting to the bar upstairs is difficult. The tables are placed super close to it, so that when people are at them, you really can't get to the bar without someone knocking into you. Besides the small 'dance floor', there's only one other way to get to the karaoke stage--a very narrow walkway crowded by a long table.

Their karaoke set up isn't bad. It's not great, but it's not bad. Being able to use their computer to look up a song and input your name was a nice touch. Felt as though people were able to spend less time looking for a song that way.

The background instrumental (karaoke music without the lyrics) was WAAAAY too loud. Ended up changing my song because screaming into the mic for a slow song kills the feel of it. In my experience, bars that care more about selling drinks and less about the karaoke event typically drown out the mic with background instrumental.

Tl;Dr: Taking off two stars since women's bathrooms don't lock--and are on bottom floor. Getting to the upstairs bar and karaoke stage is a challenge due to poor layout. Karaoke background instrumentals were...

Thunder and Buttons is a really nice experience. Starting off with the best note: The fries here are among the best anywhere. Cooked similarly to the way Popeyes fries them, they are extra crispy on the outside, hot and perfect on the inside. The flavor is exceptional, mixing spices that I cannot place, but go together perfectly.

The frickles (fried pickles) are very good, but also very average. They don't seem to do anything special, so if you're looking to get some fried pickles that aren't "experimental" and want a safe option, these will absolutely meet your criteria.

The KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) sandwich had just about everything going right for it. It was delicious on all fronts leaving only one thing to be desired: The sauce was present, but felt like it wasn't doing its best. I believe it was because it would have been much more cohesive if the fried chicken was tossed/coated in the sauce, rather than having them as separate entities.

Lastly, the Pretzels with beer cheese was served fresh and hot. It was again, an average experience, but very enjoyable nonetheless.

The service was great, and I would say depending on how many others are sharing the space with you, expect a bit more prep time in the kitchen than you are used to. Is it worth the wait? Depending on what you choose to order, for the most...