1899 Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Flagstaff

Way overpriced for the level of food and service. Took our NAU son here for Easter Dinner. We were the only one's in the place for about half of our meal. We were greeted at the door, friendly, and seated quickly. Our server came over quickly and took our drink orders. Their Brewed Iced Tea is exceptional, wish I could have gotten a refill and that it wasn't the best part of the meal. My empty glass sat on the edge of the table for almost an hour and had to be pushed out of the way on two occasions by our server. My son and I ordered the Mixed Grill (small steak, pork ribs, and pork belly). Both of us ordered it all cooked to a medium temperature. My steak was difficult to cut...really difficult....like cutting threw a sweatshirt- it just wouldn't tear! It was bathed in what they call a steak sauce that was clearly there to hid the quality of the meat. Once I wiped all the sauce off, I realized that my steak still needed a couple minutes to reach rare...it was still frigid in the middle. Interesting as my son's steak was cooked to well-done and was flavor-less. I moved on to the Pork Belly as the ribs were smothered in another overwhelming sauce. This was cooked but the fat was not rendered so the best that we could compare it to was a wet kitchen sponge for texture and a pork-chop type taste...it manged to avoid most of the sauce on the plate. The texture was just too much- it was a loss. I picked at the mashed potatoes and the server happily came over and asked if everything tasted alright. When I showed her the pool of blood on my plate from the steak, she was appalled and took my plate back to the kitchen for replacement. We received our meal in less than ten minutes on the first run...should have been suspicious of that. My whole family was done eating before my replacement meal arrived. The steak was pre-cut on my plate and cooked to medium as ordered....still amazingly tough, and still an excessive amount of sauce. I wiped it clear of the sauce and was able to taste the meat....ok flavor...but wasn't able to stomach the whole thing (all 10 bites of it). The ribs were gross. They call them 6 hour ribs, they just don't mention which day those 6 hours were in, because those bad boys had been pre-cooked and re-warmed in a very bad way. Sadly that was all my wife had ordered, she ate two ribs and tossed in the towel. My 10 year old ordered the soup of the day and a salad. He's a soup eater and finished only about half of a kinda stingy portion. He loved the salad. They offered us a box and my wife packed up about a full rack of ribs and some pork belly that hadn't been touched. I asked if she was packing it for a homeless guy on the street, and she laughed and said that was exactly what she was thinking. As we walked out, she tossed the food in the trash and said that she would feel bad giving it to someone. For a dinner over $100 this was Village Inn quality at best...service was just ok. The place looks great- decor and location are spot on. Might need to hire a chef that...

My wife was much more gracious than I with her comments in her one star tripadvisor review. As she stated, we were exhausted and hungry from our all day travels and were fooled by the fake 4 and 5 star ratings of this place. DONT BELIEVE THEM.

Our bad experience started as we walked through the door of this place. We were worried that there was only one other couple was in the entire restaurant at dinner time. Not a great endorsement any place you go. And then the smell. Very powerful smell of mold or mildew permeated the building, which really seemed strange in this dry climate. Oh well, I thought, I’ve been to my Grandma’s house, I can handle this, but my stomach did a couple flips already at this point.

The menu was extremely limited and as I recall only had four or five entree selections. Being from Texas I can always go for a nice chicken fried steak and was interested in trying the Arizona version when I saw it on the menu. What arrived at the table was NOT chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. I am not joking or embellishing when I say this… this steak substance was grey in color, flat as folded wash rag, with a scary abundance of green flakes of some sort of seasoning all over it. The “mashed potatoes” had pesto mixed in which in retrospect is probably the worst sort of clumsy attempt to add flavor to instant potatoes I’ve ever had.

I’m almost sixty years old and have had good and bad chicken fried steak over the years and I can HONESTLY say … this was worst ever… on the planet. Congratulations 1899, you have a tremendous accomplishment in that. Two bites… my tongue went into shock, not believing anything could be this bad. As hungry as I was, I could not force myself to eat another bite. Same for the potatoes. I sent it all back, the waitress not understanding, as if no one else ever complained here. REALLY? Please tell me Arizonans have better taste than this!

After traveling all day the last thing I wanted to eat was a greasy burger, but guess what…that’s the only other thing on the menu that could possibly be a safe bet so that’s what I ordered next. By now, my wife is completely finished eating what she could…and we waited 30 minutes more for my burger to arrive. The stench of the restaurant, the bad synthetic grey chicken fried glob from Uranus… I had completely lost my appetite. The burger came… and of course was raw in the center. Good Lord.

I was trying to put a polite spin on this travesty of a restaurant so I asked the waitress for a to-go box. We paid our $45 check (which they should’ve donated to science) and I chunked my to-go box in the nearest dumpster once we got outside. I’ve been to about 40 states in the Union and have never….never had a more disgusting meal while traveling. Please spare yourself. Don’t go here. All the good reviews are fake or from people that eat mud....

To begin with, this is not fine or even upscale dining. Imagine if you took a Chili's menu and deleted about 2/3 of the entries, that's kind of what is offered at 1899 Bar and Grill. We walked in and we're seated promptly at a comfortable booth. Our server asked if we would like any beverages or cocktails. I asked for a bottle of sparkling water but was told that they don't have any sparkling water. We then proceeded to order two cocktails, mine a Hendricks and tonic. The cocktails took a full 25 minutes to materialize and came in the middle of our main course. The Hendricks and tonic that arrived was actually some form of a whiskey drink, and when the server took it back and brought another drink it was obviously not Hendricks. I sent it back and did not order a replacement. The menu is extremely limited. Mostly burgers with a few appetizers, salads and 4 entrees. Very disappointing. We ordered an appetizer, two dinner salads and two entrees. All of the food arrived at the same time. It was delivered team food service style, not by our server but by anybody who is convenient, and nobody obviously knew who had ordered what. No quality control. The quality of the food was mediocre but not unacceptable. The steak frites were nothing more than a pan-fried steak with french fries. The taco salad had crisp greens but the chicken tasted like it came out of a can. Through the meal, nobody came to refill our waters or check on us. In the end we asked to speak to the manager and expressed our dissatisfaction at the overall experience. We hope somebody takes the initiative to turn this into a...