Carolina Ale House - Durham — Restaurant in Durham

Came to Ale House 08/27/20 with my friend to have dinner. The experience was okay until we had to ask our waiter 4 or 5 different times for a straw, only to have to still get up and go get one from another waitress. He never mentioned anything else about giving us a straw when he came back so we said okay fine, forget the straw. Maybe he was busy and we gave him another chance, no biggie. I was a waitress before so I understand the job can be stressful and consuming. Also, he was very short and seemed like he was already irritated by something else the whole time he was waiting on us so were cracking jokes trying to lighten the mood.

It comes time to order and we get a drink and also an appetizer and asked if we could get the fishbowl size for the drink, he says ok. We order our food as well. So now, it takes 30 minutes to get the drink and app and we were not checked on or offered refills on our regular drink while waiting. The alcoholic beverage comes and it is the regular size instead of the fishbowl like we asked for and confirmed, we didn’t bother to say anything since it took so long to make in the first place. Had to ask for an extra straw as well even though he knew we ordered the drink to share.

So now, an hour later after having to beg for straws, silverware and refills from our clearly uninterested waiter, the food comes and is cold/half way wrong from what we ordered. Now, we were so genuinely frustrated that we finally said something to the waiter and asked if we could just get it remade. He said there was a new girl in the kitchen who most likely prepared it wrong and that he would get it fixed for us. I watch him go to the kitchen and come back out, 30 minutes goes by and we are still waiting while he is standing around with coworkers talking and putting in other orders.

At that point we were hungry and tired of being treated so poorly so we left money to cover the drink and then asked him for a manager to let them know about our experience and why we didn’t want the food anymore. He then walks away and doesn’t come back until minutes later after we decide to leave the restaurant, while recording on his phone and saying we didn’t pay for our food that we never received correctly after waiting patiently, which other guests that were there can attest to.

Needless to say, this was the most horrible experience I’ve ever had while just trying to have a simple night out with a friend. Not sure of the waiters name but he is white with red hair and skinny with the most horrible/awkward attitude, it is truly disgusting to...

Well I had a guy as my waiter named Daniel and he was training a young lady I don't want to try to spell her name because it was something different but at the end of service I gave her a $10 bill and she had to give the tip to him even though I wanted it for her I don't like that I didn't appreciate that whether she was in training or not they would have been better off giving me the $10 back then for her to give it to him. She was honest by saying that she had to give it to her managers because she was in training or the guy that was training her and supposedly she said that she made a decent hourly wage but that's not the point if you give me good service and you're in training people are going to want to give to you not whoever is training you. I ordered the flounder loaded mashed potatoes and coleslaw The coleslaw it was kind of bland the fish I think it was raw and it was overly greasy. And the overloaded potatoes they took the bacon out but it had too much skin in it like way too much skin so much skin that there was more skin than potato. My fiance got the chicken wings but he forgot to ask if he can have all flats but another lady came out wearing all black I'm assuming she was one of the top dogs or something and she was really nice and she got him what he needed. When we left Daniel asked us did we want drinks to go and we both said yes I don't know how my fiance drink was but I got pink lemonade and it was just water I was wondering what was taking them so long so something must have been going on with the machine because it was kind of pinkish and color but it tastes like water so I didn't appreciate that The overall experience I will give about a two or three. I love the fact that they have TVs all over the building and you can hear what's going on on TV while you're in the bathroom which I thought was pretty cool they had pool tables in the back I saw a couple of video games so the atmosphere was like grade A I thought that...

This Carolina Ale House is the epitome of sub-standard food & service. My family & I have been coming to this Ale House for years, knowing the service is poor & inattentive, but the food is normally good. Well, that is the case no longer. Don't bother with this Ale House, just go to one of the other ones. I hope the management sees this and figures out how to turn around this restaurant to be more like the others. The overall locla restaurant chain is a great, this location does not reflect that.

I'll start with the evening events. It was a cold Tuesday evening as we're walking in to the restaurant. I notice the smell of stale beer on the patio, my 4yo notices the smell of stale cigarettes in the foyer of the building. My 4yo noticed the cigarette smell, that should tell you something if you have kids. Next we order our drinks, and the server brought the wrong drink for my kid, we didn't bother to correct them. My wife and I get beer, her beer was served flat alongside my beer with a beautiful head of hoppy goodness. The bartender, drink runner, or server should have noticed this, but NOPE, they served it flat, like super duper flat, not even a bubble in the glass, anywhere. Now comes our food, sigh... The Buffalo Zinger wrap from my wife was lacking flavor, much less any zing. It tasted bland. My wings which I ordered grilled, 1/2 dry-rub 1/2 five-alarm, were soggy and bland as well. I had to ask for more dry rub because there was so little used on it, the wings had no taste. It was a good thing the wings were temperature hot because the five alarm sauce was cold to the touch. Eventually the wings heated the sauce, and made them tolerable.

In summary, go to a different Ale House. It's normally a good chain, just not this location. I'm sorry my first review in years had to be a negative one, but I hope management sees this and takes drastic steps to revamp...