Capital Ale House — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

My family decided to stop into Capital Ale House while enjoying the 4th of July Festival in the downtown area. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience.

We arrived about 12:30 for lunch. The restaurant wasn't busy, some people at the bar but most of the restaurant was empty. There seemed to be a handful (at least 5-7) of servers wondering around, but no met or greet us right away, taking about 10 minutes to be seated.

Food took an unusual amount of time (almost an hour) considering what we ordered, which was an appetizer (fried pickles), three sandwiches (The Club, French Dip, and Krakow), an order of nachos (cheese, beans, and cut up toppings), and a side of fries. Despite the time, they failed to make our appetizer and forgot about the side order of fries.

What was most disappointing was the food. The club bread was almost rock hard, while not stale, it was extremely hard and hurt to bite into. Second, The Krakow was supposed to come with Hungarian potatoes, but served with regular fries. The French Dip was mostly bread, and only came with a very small amount of Au Jus. The sides of fries were inconsistently cooked, some were fine others seemed under cooked. The nacho chips were definitely stale, with melted cheese that was hard to pull apart once cooled, and only included a very small amount of toppings, with most of the chips not covered with anything.

We mentioned several of the items to our server, missing the potatoes, pickles, and fries, though once she stated they would have to be made, we declined and requested they be removed as we didn't want to wait. The rest we did not mention, not eating most of the nachos, half of the club, and part of our other dishes as we didn't want to send anything back having to wait again for it to be fixed or corrected.

While our server was nice, she seemed distracted or rushed. We had to request silverware and napkins after our food was delivered. We had to request ketchup several times before she brought it. She refilled our Sprites with water. Overall, she wasn't very attentive or helpful.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Capital Ale House. While their menu had some great items, they'd need to make some changes before I'd be willing to revisit. There are too many other highly recommended restaurants in the Fredericksburg area before including this one...

The first time I’ve been out on a date alone with my husband in over a year since having a baby, and had a terrible experience. I’ve been coming here for years and unfortunately this place has gone so downhill. It used to be so classy and now it’s just another crappy Fredericksburg bar with terrible service. First off, we stood and waited at least 5 minutes before anyone came to seat us, and then we were reluctantly greeted by a hostess who was very clearly TOO SICK to be working, totally lost her voice and should’ve been sent home. Not a good look for a food establishment. Then onto our server. Being a waitress myself in the past I’m always extra grateful and pretty understanding if they’re busy or make little mistakes but our waitress, a blonde girl, was terrible. Multiple times she missed what we ordered. Water with lemon? No lemon. Coke with lime and no ice? Plain coke filled with ice. When I repeated that we wanted a coke with no ice, she brought back another coke with ice. Lol. She also was nowhere to be found most of the time, if she wasn’t chatting with the bartender or manager, and never checked on us after we got our food, which was honestly pretty good apart from my burger being totally plain. I was never asked if I wanted any toppings and I didn’t mind asking for some after the fact, except that she didn’t come back for a good 10-15 minutes after bringing it to us. Seemed pretty annoyed with us for wanting the bare minimum- what we ordered. I also ordered a blackberry Moscow mule, which had zero blackberry to it whatsoever and was mostly ice. I’ve had Moscow mules from here many times in the past and always enjoyed them until this visit. And then we had to wait and wait and wait to get the check paid. I can’t believe we had such an awful experience on this one rare occasion I had to be out with my husband for the first time in so long. Disappointed is an...

My friends and I came here to enjoy a nice dinner together and the service was okay. Our server was doing her best as she was very busy but we understood. All of our alcoholic beverages did not taste like alcohol. Not that that is “necessary”, but all of our drinks tasted like juice. We assumed it was because it is First Friday, that they were trying to save alcohol possibly? We did not drink our drinks so we asked the server if she could take them off. The server only took off 2 of my friends drinks (a cocktail and a martini) and did not take mine off although I did not drink my drink either and also offered me a soft drink. Not sure why she thought I wanted my not drunken beverage. The manager Carmen then came over and was being EXTREMELY rude. She explained that she had already taken off two of the alcohol beverages, hinting that she did not want to comp the 3rd drink (my drink). She tried to make us feel as though we were young dumb girls that didn’t know that “cocktails aren’t supposed to taste like alcohol”and that “cocktail and martinis have the same amount of alcohol”. Little did she know, one of my friends has been a bartender for 6 years and myself and the other friend have been serving alcohol for 3 years. We know what we are talking about and for Carmen to try to belittle us is crazy. We get it we may have looked like young “dumb” girls, but that is not how you talk to customers as we also told her. If she was a professional manager, I wouldn’t be writing this review. I have never written a review towards any restaurant before in my entire life, but this experience was just overall awful. If she doesn’t know the different between the amount of alcohol that goes in a cocktail versus a martini NOR know how to speak to customers in a RESPECTFUL manner, then she shouldn’t be working in the...