Hard Hat Tavern — Restaurant in Durham

Although the food is decent and it has a good atmosphere inside, for some reason there is always an issue with getting my food on time. I've been to the hardhat about 4 times, and everytime something goes wrong where my order wasnt placed, it was messed up, or took much longer than expected. So I end up having to wait an extra 20 to 30 minutes for my food in top of already waiting 15 minutes. I understand things like this happen, but after my last time eating at the hard hat, I finally decided to ask the server why this continuously keeps happening. The server didn't have an answer for me so I asked to speak with the manager. The manager Missy told me that if I don't like the service then I can leave. I explained that I was just looking for an explanation as to why this was a common occurrence, to which she raised her voice and told me that this is how it is and if I don't like it, I need to get off the property. I again stated that I just wanted to know where the issue was. Missy then started aggressively and loudly telling me that I was being rude to the server and she yelled at me to stop. The server didn't say anything at the time, but later expressed to me that she thought I was very calm and respectful. To illustrate how rude and unprofessional Missy was during our conversation, other customers in the restuarant had stopped eating and looked over at the commotion that Missy was creating. To be a manager of a restuarant, I don't think someone in that position should act belligerent and unprofessional, creating an unnecessary scene that ruined my night. After telling this story to multiple friends of mine that have also eaten at hard hat, a good number of them said they have experienced similar issues. Most of which also included Missy being the problem. Don't get me wrong, there are many great employees there that have gone above and beyond for my family and I, but until Missy is completely gone from Hard hat, myself and my family will never return. To be accused of mistreating someone, yelled at in front of others, and completely disrepected by someone who is unhinged is not my idea of a...

Not a great experience at all. I went here on 11/16/2023 with my friend for a light dinner. HHT wasn't even that busy and it was a complete disaster from start to finish. I try to be fair with these reviews, but this just wasn't good. We waited for about 5ish minutes at the table before anyone came over to us. I ordered a beer and it came about 20ish minutes after I ordered it. The food was already on the table when the bartender came over with the beer. The head on the beer was gone; I could tell it was sitting around for a little bit so I declined to take it and the bartender took it back. In addition, after we ordered the food, the waitress came back about 5 min after we ordered and told us they were out of our entree for the evening. This was very aggravating to me. I worked as a waiter for years and we always went over "86'd" items in our pre shift team meeting. So we reordered. When the food came out mine was barely warm. My water was empty and the waitress was nowhere to be found. I finished the entire meal and she never came over once to see how the food was. A table next to us was having issues with their dinner as well and the manager was clearly annoyed and visually aggravated that they were complaining. She was quite animated. Not a good look when the service and food is in the proverbial tubes. I didn't bother saying anything to the manager cause she was just annoyed that everyone was complaining. Lastly, we walked out and another server was gossiping with the hostess at the hostess station. My friend made it a point to say "You too" on our way out when nobody at the hostess station said, "Have a good night". None of these things alone are really a big deal, but it all added up to being annoyed. I won't be back. There are 10,000 places to get wings and a beer. Archie Moore's is 15 minutes up the road and I have never had a...

First time going there the food was okay, service was…serviceable. Took us longer than average to get waited on and to get our food but it wasn’t egregious. The second time? We sat at the full bar tended by only one bartender doing not only drinks for the bar but the entire rest of the restaurant. This meant that we waited 45 minutes just to get our order taken. Not blaming the tender, he was working hard as he could given the extreme disadvantage he was handed. My real gripe was with the food. Not only did our appetizers and food come out together (more than likely because the overworked bartender forgot about our order) but when my food, the Rigatoni Bolognese came out, it was missing sauce. How is rigatoni bolognese made without sauce? I was handed a bowl of rigatoni, meat, and ricotta. There was not one single hint of a tomato in that dish which really confused me because not only does the menu describe a “sauce”, but that’s also just what rigatoni bolognese is. Do they make the meat separate from the sauce and mix it when needed? Bizarre, the meat adds flavor to meat sauce I thought…

Anyway, we didn’t even try to tell the bartender or any other staff about this because they were either too busy or very obviously avoiding customer complaints, probably because they were short staffed and they knew it.

This was a really hard day for my fiancé and I, and we just didn’t want to have to think about dinner so this experience really soured us on the restaurant as a whole, unfortunately. I’m sure if they’re more staffed the experience would be serviceable but it wasn’t this time and the service at our first outing wasn’t anything to write home about either so it’s going to be a while before...