Next Door Pizza Pub — Restaurant in Lake Hallie

Went to dinner there last night (6/22/25) during a long drive as I'm from the area and wanted something more than fast food. I want to find restaurants in the area where I can take my wife and kids to for decent food and service to get away from the normal fast food.

We went because it had good reviews and the outside didn't look like every dive bar in the area. I was thinking it was going to look more like a restaurant and less like a bar. Once I got there, it definitely looked like every other bar out there from the inside. It didn't feel like a welcoming pizza type establishment for families like I thought it was going to be.

There was one employee that was doing the job of 4-5 people. At one point I thought I saw a waitress but she showed herself for 1 minute and disappeared into I believe the private room for the whole hour or so we were there never to be seen again. I had to wait at least an hour for two 12" pizzas to be made and since the one employee was doing 4 jobs at once (bartender, waitress, busboy, hostess to name a few) it took forever to even get checked on, which I don't blame her. She was very kind though and a hard worker.

$9 for maybe a small handful of cheese curds was nuts. I've paid $9 for cheese curds at places and got enough for at least 2 people to share. One pizza got done at least 15min before our second pizza. The first pizza was over cooked for sure but still tasted okay. By the time the second pizza (my pizza) finally showed up I lost my appetite and was ready to go.

I had high hopes for this place. I was pretty irritated by the whole experience. Saw people walk in, look around, and decided to go elsewhere. Something I wish we did. Over an hour for food is insane. Sounds like they used to be a better place to go. I won't be returning anytime soon...

I love what they've done inside. Very nice decorative touches everywhere. Huge improvement from previous establishment there. The menu had some excellent offerings that i'll look forward to trying in the future.

My first pizza here was the Margharita. The crust was crunchy and delicious with great texture but the sauce was a little bland and it seemed as though raw sliced tomatoes (not even Romas) were placed on top after it came out of the oven not baked through. I would liked to have seen fresh basil leaves on top rather than the tiny flakes we got and just a bit more fresh mozzarella than we got as well.

I'm definitely going to give this place another try but my first impression wasn't great with this pie. At $23 for a large, I felt like the price was fair but I also expected to walk in the door and get that wonderful smell of a pizzaria. If i hadn't seen the name on the door, I wouldn't have known that's what they served there.

I hope they do well here because it's very conveniently located on the north side of Eau Claire next to Heartbreakers on Cty OO and I like to support local businesses as much as possible. The fact that it's less than a mile from home might have a little to do...

Edit: I wanted to add that the management did make things right with a refund and gift card. I hope they figure out a better way to keep tabs on their website, seems like an oversight to not have a way to know it's not working.

We placed an order online for delivery on a Friday night, the wait time said 45 minutes, it's a busy night, no problem. So we waited an hour, and then an hour and a half and called the place to see where our pizza was. The guy who answered the phone didn't know a pizza had been ordered and said the ticket printer wasn't working, and that they hadn't had a delivery driver for an hour, but said he would call his manager. It took 30 more minutes to call us back, right as their kitchen closed anyway. We had already decided to get pizza from the local Kwik trip because we were starving at this point, and they didn't leave a message at all. I usually love this place but I'm so upset and disappointed about this, and really hope I can get a refund when someone who knows what's going on will answer...