NATALIE’S — Restaurant in Gilbert

For context I grew up in Gilbert and have frequented Skip and Jan's quite often, but a few years back stopped coming in. It was always just an "ok" bar in my opinion, more or less the same as every other sports bar within a 5 or 10 mile radius. The only allure to keep coming back here was the cheap prices and pool tables, other than that it didn't stand out at all. When I overheard a few months ago about the new changes with Bar Rescue, I was excited to try them again and make this a new regular spot for me, given that the food and drinks would now be improved. For the next couple of months in late 2023 this bar became just that and I loved it. It had the same allure of good prices and pool tables, but now with much better food and drinks.. that is, until the other day when I walked in and was told they completely did away with the new drinks and food, and the old food menu was more or less back. The only difference now (I'm assuming due to the bar rescue hype) is that it was way busier than usual, which led to a decrease in service time and lacking standards. It took me over 10 minutes to get a simple drink and i had to wait until i was finished with my first drink before the bar top i was sitting at was cleaned, which I had to instruct the bartender to do despite seeing the state of where I was sitting. In fact, spilled and half-empty drinks were sitting where I was at the bar upon arrival and I needed to ask if anyone was sitting there before they were cleared away to make space for me. It was really disappointing. Now they are no different from any other typical bar, and I don't see a reason to come back here if what I am going to pay for is simply subpar, and there are 10 - 20 other bars just like it much closer to me. If the quality of the drinks and food were made more of a priority, this place would be amazing, as I enjoy conversing with the clientele and staff here. This is the only reason my review is 3 stars and not lower, but my disappointment with my recent experiences can't be stated enough. Hopefully some changes related to the drinks especially are implemented again soon, if so I will gladly be a regular here again, if not more often than before. Best of luck Natalie and staff, but without better drinks it's unlikely I'll return with any sense of regularity.

EDIT: Came back in for another chance, ordered a Manhattan as the owner suggested in response to my review, bartender "michelles" response: "yeah we don't do that here".. assuming they didn't have the vermouth or bitters. 3 star review still stands. Natalies has so much potential but is unfortunately only average in comparison to other bars nearby. Plus side: ordered food this time, despite the state of the kitchen on Bar Rescue while Julio was working during my visit today, and decent wings. No complaints there. 3 stars unfortunately...

Before I share my most recent experiances here, I do want to make a remark about others who saw this place on Bar Rescue. don't live here in Arizona along with never stepping foot into the business then slander the place when in fact never had an actual experiance of going there. To @Butterfly24 Stars and @slayer 1 who left 1 star reviews on here when you BOTH ARE NOT in Arizona along with never walking into the business, shame on you both. Anyone who leaves 1star reviews here when they have not ever stepped inside will be flagged. I stand 110% behind the owner especually after watching the Bar Rescue Episode. Yes I will agree, the owner Natalie let things slide where things around the sports bar got bad, but in her defense too she had things occur that we call life such as divorce which can be very emotionally hard along take a toll on a business. Yes the kitchen was very dirty at begaining of episode, but that has been corrected. On bringing Julio back, that is the owners decision, but if he can't redeem himself, then I'm confident the owner will do the right thing to remove him from being employed there.

Now for my experiance, since they revamped, I've been there twice, the remodeling Bar Rescue did is totally amazing. Ive had the Natalie's Burger and the Natalie's Wings (where there are grilled). Food is very good, reasonably priced and the draft beer as of this wrtiing $3 for a domestic draft (can't go wrong there). Beer came out very cold in a nice clean glass. Really want to go back, try some more things on the menu and have nice cold beer especially after long day of working. In addition really like their Billards and Game Room, going to be buying my own pool cue sticks and then bring them over to play some pool over there. It's a fun place that's now many times better after Bar Rescue. I'm super glad this bar is part of the West Gilbert Community and for sure willing to support a small business like this who has an owner that has big heart plus major passion. A negative I hope the owner will improve, is the service. My 2nd visit there took 10 min just to get a menu to order food plus another 5 min to acutally...

Went there with my wife some friends Thursday night 17th of July to celebrate my wife Birthday. As we got there we sat at the bar only to get look at like we had no money by bar (manager) Kayla. we order our drinks and food just to be serviced with not even a smile. after that I had to literally go ask other bartender that was not even working the bar. Not only did I get crappie service from the so call manager, I also could not believe the pool table server would lose 20 bucks a hour on tables*(two tables left open all night), due to other 2 customer (total of 2 customer per table) renting them out and only paying 8 dollar table. after spending 100 bucks there. Went to Dios Gringos had spent other 100 bucks. if I was the owner of this establishment these two would not be working there. The experience that I received this past Thursday, had to tell my colleague about it. only to hear them say the same thing about Kayla. I am a regular customer that been going to Skip and Jan for the last 4yrs and has brought many of me co-works to the establishment. I never had this bad of experience. I hope the owner of Skip n Jan reads...