Vine Street Pub & Brewery — Restaurant in Denver

Decent food , good beer but lots of room for improvement at front of house.

This Was my first time at vine street on 17th in Denver. Found them by searching for top family or kid friendly restaurant in cap hill / city park area.

Made reservation on the phone in mid afternoon for 6 pm arrival , party of 6 including a toddler.

Arrived early and they couldn’t find the resy. The host/ manager person said she remembers seeing a name/time/ party size written on a coaster earlier but threw it away. Hmmm.

They found us a table and we got seated. The place was hopping . Noise level is above average so not a place for a quiet dinner. Server came right over and offered a high chair/booster and got our drink order and informed us of soup of the day. Only 2 non alcoholic beers on menu and they were out of the lager. Server was pleasant and attentive .

It’s not clear on menu what proteins can be added to salads. I asked if chicken can be added to the Thai brussel salad. He apologized that they ran out of the Thai salad but He recommended the salmon Niçoise salad which is strangely not in the salad section of the menu. That’s what I ordered.

Food came out in a decent amount of time delivered by a food runner or different server. It arrived while I was exploring the restaurant with the toddler. When I returned to the table and I started to eat I noticed that I didn’t get the niçoise. When our server came over he was also surprised and checked with the kitchen. Turned out they had run out of the niçoise and the kitchen hadn’t informed the servers and someone decided to substitute the harvest salad with no protein. Server offered to get something else or add chicken … which arrived quickly.

That was a Pretty big breakdown in communication between kitchen and server team and very lame that someone / probably kitchen or expo person decided to substitute without asking.

The salad I didn’t order was good, fresh, and good sized portion. Maybe a little bit overdressed. A reminder to me to always get dressing on side.

Part of problem may be their team model where every waiter can wait on and serve / run food to any table …. which means no one is really fully responsible for quality control / order completeness.

Overall food for my party was good and people enjoyed themselves. Soup was a little stodgy- like if was getting down to the bottom of the warmer. The temphee Reuben was well liked. Great fries. Large selection of their tasty house brewed beer but very little in NA. Got off on wrong foot with lost reservation which suggests sloppy systems. Service was attentive until the ball got dropped in several ways which suggest management and supervision problems (not related to our server).

All in all, I probably wouldnt...

If I could rate this place any lower, I would.

I visited Vine Street Pub on 3/7/14. Some friends were visiting from out of town for my birthday and we wanted to visit a place that reminded us of home. We're all Oregonians and I had just relocated from Oregon a month prior with my wife. Vine Street seemed perfect.

We arrived, ordered our drinks at the bar, and subsequently presented our identification. Interestingly enough, the bartender seemed suspicious of my license. He stepped away for a moment and spoke with (who I assume was) the manager. They, without any discretion whatsoever, thumbed through the official "2013 I.D. Checking Guide - United States & Canada Edition". A few minutes later the manager approached us, book in hand, and made us aware that they didn't recognize the official new-address sticker (that Oregon issues to it's natives upon change-of-address) and that they "reserve the right to refuse service" on that basis. After a brief exchange between the manager and I, I asked her what she was ACTUALLY saying by stating her right to refuse service. And it was simply that, she refused to serve us. I was shocked and angry, to say the least. We left promptly. And while I was angry, I did not become inflammatory or belligerent.

I would normally understand such a policy. I'm a reasonable person. A liquor license is very important and I commend the manager for being dutiful in protecting it; however, this was completely unreasonable. The 2013 guide they based their decision on is time sensitive, valid only in the year 2013. It's even says "time sensitive" on the cover of the guide. It's very possible they've refused service to other would-be patrons since January 1st. Not only that, but the manager took no time to personally examine my drivers license. None. Had she taken her nose out of her book and given my I.D. a thorough examination, she would have found it satisfactory. It seemed as if she was prepared to refuse service to us before we eve had a chance to speak.

I felt as if we were dismissed without the due respect new customers deserve. I will never return and will advise other out-of-towners, as well as Colorado natives, of their dubious methods of vetting patrons and I will do so until I...

So glad that Vine Street is back. I’m biased but it’s the restaurant I’ve probably fallen in love with. Spent many good days inside and on the patio with friends and beers n wings.

Happy to say they are back to more or less the “old full menu”, with some new additions. The pizza is freaking incredible. Rivals nearly ALL of the top pizza spots in denver (and I’m a pizza snob). Literally was stunned how good it was for $10 on their new and improved happy hour.

When we were seated we were greeted with a free basket of “freedom fries” - it was the perfect welcome as they were perfectly crisp. We ordered mostly from the aforementioned happy hour and it was all delicious. $6 pitchers (32-40oz, if I had to guess) still an absolute steal. Highly recommend checking out Vine Street. Between the food, vibes, beers, service and fact that they now take cards, i can’t think of any pub/bar/restaurant that even comes close to delivering what Vine Street does from a quality to value perspective.

One caveat - I didn’t try their wings. Their “old” is Wings were absolutely world class (hopefully they still do the secret menu “Tim’s style wings”!!!) I opted for pizza vs wings but I did see another review that looked like they had the OG monster, lightly breaded wings that were finished on the grill for extra crispness. Chefs...