Niwot Tavern — Restaurant in Colorado

Food is amazing on some items and not all that impressive on others. The fish fry special should be a permanent menu item as it was spectacular. Irish nachos were great. Saw many gyros and steak salads on that visit so decided to try those on the next visit. Steak salad is pretty boring a sliced steak on top of mixed greens, nothing really special or unique the dressing was not well seasoned so it did not add much to the dish either. Gyro was some mixed greens and a few pieces of carved gyro meat stuffed in a standard pita and some grape tomatoes. So it was salad regurgitated with gyro meat and a very lemon forward tzatziki that was decent but over powered the entire dish with lemon so it was not balanced at all. And we decided the Irish nachos were so good why not try the regular nachos this time?!? Well all the shredded cheese on the nachos was on the bottom of a hot plate and nearly none on the actual chips. Salsa was amazing. Our first visit was on a Friday night and it was busy that is to be expected so you give grace to any restaurant for that, however almost 20 mins to get water and order a soda. Then 10 mins to get the soda and order the appetizer. 25 mins for the appetizer to show up after having to ask a different server if they knew where it was cause ours was missing the entire time. The app came out in just a few mins and our server showed up to take our order and just about the time we finished our app the dinner came out. It honestly felt like our server was just not getting things put in so nothing was getting made but when it did get put in things happened timely, total time was a little over 2 hours. On our second visit we went on a weekday afternoon so that we could see if it was just a fluke. We received the same server and water came quickly and we ordered our first soda and it came like it should we ordered our appetizer and our server disappeared. The appetizer arrived and they took our order. Then they go to rolling silverware and ignoring their tables. They bring our food and filled our soda once this will be the only refill for the entire meal. They never came by to check on the quality of the meal or and refills at all, getting the check was very difficult and took almost 10 mins after we were done. We are hopeful that this is just a specific server as we saw others that were very attentive when we were there on that first Friday night. If we have a positive service experience I will update this review and PLEASE as the fish fry special to the permanent menu it's...

So everyone has a bad night, or a bad table. I've waited enough tables to know that, and to know its all about how you recover. We were seated, then apparently forgotten. After a half hour of sitting at our table I asked a passing employee if anyone had our table as we had not even received water. She said she would find someone and went to visibly talk to several people. 10 more minutes go by and she stops by with water, and we say still no one has come. She was concerned, said she would talk to the manager. At this point, diners who arrived after us were being served meals. Several more minutes went by and no manager stopped by. Eventually (5-10 minutes later?) a kind server shows up and says no one told her that she was to take our table. So I get it, I've been there as a server. But the situation is really messed up after 45 minutes, and it is not our current server's problem. The rest of the meal was awkward...someone brought our salads and literally dropped them without a word at the table and before I could say thank you they were gone, no small talk, no nothing. A relatively bland meal arrived with no garnish, no effort (maybe this is how they always serve a patty melt, though it presented as one I made myself in a hurry at home). My wife commented that we've had better customer service from a vending machine--which saved the night as that is pretty funny and put me in a good mood. There was absolutely no effort by the restaurant to recover from this. They recognized the error...they had guests sitting unattended for 45 minutes...but not even a "we are sorry" from the manager. This was our first visit and frustratingly, my wife looked at the menu when we arrived and said "this is a place we should come to often", but by the time I left I did not even want to consider returning. I'm very very OK with errors. I don't like zero effort...

Stopped by for lunch with family after my daughter’s softball game. The atmosphere seemed welcoming for a Saturday Lunch experience but unfortunately the experience was abysmal. My daughter’s cheeseburger arrived without cheese, my father’s hamburger arrived raw and severely undercooked-neither were at all what were ordered. All the other food items arrived bland and underwhelming. The food was disappointing but the service was beyond appalling. Our server never provided a child’s menu and ignored our request several times for one. She never returned to check on us. When my dad bit into his burger and discovered how raw the patty was, he patiently waited for her to return to have it cooked further and she never came back. Our waters sat empty for the entire lunch. When she finally returned to our table we addressed the undercooked food items to which she silently removed and never offered a solution or remedy. Zero dialogue. It was super strange. She only returned to deliver the check and ask if we wanted dessert. Obviously after the experience we had, dessert wasn’t an option (especially since members of our party were still hungry awaiting the meals they ordered). Lindsey, our waitress, seemed checked out. Very strange. Never had a waitress ignore guests especially when there’s an actual issue like food born illness on the table. Trying to offer her the benefit of the doubt here, but it was lunch time and there was only one patron inside at the bar. They weren’t busy. Not sure what could have prevented her from doing her job but regardless it was a very uncomfortable and unsatisfying meal. Needless to say we...