Historians Ale House — Restaurant in Denver

It’s very strange to walk into a neighborhood establishment known for its broad menu, attentive service, convivial atmosphere, and especially its legendary lunch special just to see notices on every table, bar, and even the bathroom doors that they’ve eliminated service entirely and shifted the burden onto the customer. The already harried bartenders have to take orders from a queue while also scurrying to make drinks, and you’re responsible for finding the napkins, condiments, and cutlery you need after picking up your food. This means the food is cheaper, right? No, they’ve clearly posted that their lunch special and menu have gone up in price. Higher prices and worse service isn’t exactly a winning combination.

The only saving grace is that the food was good. Of course, the sides you’d expect with a $14 sandwich such as French fries are extra…$4.50 extra, in fact. For French fries. Perhaps this is a symptom of the new business model of “paying for the experience,” but having no service and feeling like you’re eating in a cafeteria while paying $25 for a burger and a beer is not the experience I’m looking for.

Times are changing, inflation is taking its toll on our whole country, but the experience here is a step too far. Service is one of the most important reasons one pays a premium to go out dining, and seeing an establishment known for that completely strip it away is a condemnation of not just the social paradigm, but about the priorities of who runs the business. It’s ruined the atmosphere as well, with cranky, underpaid staff trying to figure out just what to do and how to earn their tips.

Everything feels like a business trying to cheap out on why people go to a place like Historians and nailing together their own coffin in the process. I used to love going for the lunch special when I worked in the neighborhood, or stopping by for a drink since it was known as an industry spot. Now, it just feels like another overpriced spot cutting corners, like many before it in the...

I really wanted to like this place, but I can't even bring myself to go for the sake of being social anymore. It's true: Monday-Friday, they have a lunch special that's $5 for a VERY small beer and a plain cheeseburger. People seem to like the burger (at least for the price) but I don't do burgers. The rest of the food I've tried has just been bland and not well-prepared. I've had the steak and provolone sandwich twice, which is FAR more than it has deserved, because I thought I might have just had some bad luck with the first one. Both times, it's been more bread than anything (two HUGE pieces of toasted, or sometimes burnt texas toast), flavorless, and with "steak" that is at least half inedible gristle and fat. I've also had the fish and chips, which were flavorless and nearing soggy - definitely not crisp. The fries taste like they've been cooked in oil that's had something burnt in it, and they're unseasoned and limp. The street tacos are bad, too. basically just some shreds of meat, covered in cilantro and served with an over-abundance of raw onions on mediocre corn tortillas. Even their iced tea is bad. On top of this, the wait staff has always been extremely slow (even when the place is empty). I think they're trying to get you to order a second beer. And, I know that this won't matter to most, but if you order a sandwich or burger, they serve it to you in a piece of paper tied up with string with coleslaw and fries all mushed into your sandwich. It's just not a good presentation for a sit-down restaurant to begin with, and by the end of your meal, all you can see is the grease seeping through the paper. ...

Wow. Well, I ate an early dinner here with some friends, the food was okay, the service was great, our waiter was super helpful and nice. Unfortunately 2 out of 3 of us ended up with food poisoning later that night. We were able to figure out through the process of elimination (pun intended) that the extra side of ranch we ordered was the culprit. Apparently they make their ranch in-house, perhaps we were served an old batch? Both my friend and I were up all night with the hallmarks of food poisoning, and neither of us made it to work the next day. So yeah, that sucked.

Their management leaves a lot to be desired, really rude and unprofessional. They gave my friend and I the run around (not returning calls, or calling back when they said they would). Both the asst manager Troy and the head manager Kevin initially offered to refund our money and give us gift certificates worth 20 bucks (apparently that's the going rate for making someone disgustingly ill these days). However, neither ever followed through with their promises to refund us. Finally, more than a week and a half later Troy got back to me and very rudely informed me they would not be refunding the money we paid for the meal that made us sick, but would deign to offer us a 20 gift card. Because yeah, I'm just chomping at the bit to have another round of food poisoning - thanks, but no thanks. I never write yelp reviews, but this experience was so astronomically bad and ridiculously handled, that I...