Old Chicago Pizza + Taproom — Restaurant in Lakewood

I live less than a mile from this Old C, so when I bought my place, I was glad to have a restaurant where I could get some reliably decent food after a long day, and a beer (or 4) to alleviate some of the anguish and near physical pain caused by yet another infuriating, walking-pace drive in I-25/6th Ave rush hour traffic.

I will admit that I'm not the most patient of men, but I do consciously strive to give overworked restaurant staff the benefit if the doubt when it comes to timeliness.

Timeliness: Herein lies my beef with this particular OC location I have ordered ahead many times from this location, am provided a pickup time, arrive 10 minutes after said time, and STILL been forced to wait another 15 minute. Furthermore, while it may be a different animal than to-go tickets, they have equally huge problems with time management seating and serving the front of the house.

When I've just spent the last 45 minutes going the grand distance of 9 miles to pick up an order I made an hour prior... Yeah, I'm unlikely to project an attitude recalling sunshine and rainbows. Lastly, the attitude and lip I received from the hostess in return for politely mentioning my frustration reached the peak of hyperbole; No, Mr. Millennial, I don't think that asking for a manager because I'm unhappy I had to wait 20 minutes for a salad I ordered an hour ago could be considered criminal harassment.

In conclusion: PROS The food is consistently decent. And you can't really screw up alcohol. The atmosphere is usually chill, and only occasionally too boisterous (maybe I'm just old now), and the upstairs bar and HUGE rooftop patio are freaking awesome, especially in the summer and fall. The servers are friendly for the most part

CONS Horrible, horrendous, inhumanly slow food service, and apparently the back of the house and the front of the house either exist in separate realities and they pass food and info through a randomly appearing rent in spacetime, or they use smoke signals and covered wagons for transport and communication. Did I mention the slow service? Lotta employees just standing around... Are they hired solely for ambiance? Are their heads permanently stuck in the downward "checking Snapchat" position for, like, ever evaaaahhhhh? Oh yeah. Don't expect to get your food in a...

Awful customer service. I guess I'm a magnet for bad experiences and discrimination lately. Just left Oleee Chicago, where the bartender poured me a couple of samples, I picked one of the two, then he proceeded to pour me the other. How do I know? I'm not blind. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell the difference between two significantly differently colored beers.

I still had both tasters not empty and I very reasonably tried to explain to him so that I could get the right beer poured. I held up the taster with the clearly different color. So what did he do? He snatched it out of my hand, poured it out, while yelling at me, poured me a different one (um? that doesn't mean it's the same beer) and said, "See here look! It's the same."

That specific behavior, yelling at me and literally snatching the taster out of my hand and pouring it out so I didn't have the original one to show anymore, was completely inappropriate and I do not feel he would've done similarly to a white person. The bartender's name was Aaron.

They said they wouldnt charge me but, they refused to actually make sure the right beer was poured. So, I left flustered, came back, asked to talk to someone. Of course it's another karen type although she had some tattoos so I was hopeful.

Not only does she not focus on how inappropriate and unprofessional the bartender's response was-- the appropriate response would be "let me double check", but she proceeds to lie to me and tell me that she checked the cameras (I've worked in property management, I know there's fat chance she checked the cameras in the literal minute since I talked to her, and it's 99% unlikely that there's cameras pointed directly at all the beer taps legibly. I mean I've seen camera quality too.) But she lies to me and says she checked the cameras and I was given the right beer.

That wasn't the point, the point was regardless of whether I was given the right beer or not, the situation was inappropriately handled and, what I asked her, which she refused, was to go with me and make sure that the right beer was poured for me the second time so there would be no question.

Instead, she lied about some cameras and asked...

A very disappointing experience. The hostess was rude to multiple guests. She said "if you can find a space at the bar, you're welcome to take a seat"- which led to positive expectations. Being greeted at the bar, we were told that the party cannot be seated there because of someone being under 21. I understand the challenges of ommunications between staff and customers. It was frustrating to see multiple open tables in the bar, in the open area of the restaurant, on the patio and upstairs inside. I inquired about the wait time and was told it will be a 45 minute wait. Several parties left the restaurant in hearing that news. I was in told by a member of the House staff that it really should only be a 15 minute wait. The Hostess then snapped at another customer saying "is your name on the list or not! You won't be helped if your name is not on the list while pushing the iPad with a list of names in the person's face. The gentleman pointed to the top of the list and said "yes, we had our name on the list over 25 minutes ago". The hostess said "oh" and took the party to one of the many open places that was visible. our wait staff after another wait. We entered an order for drinks and appetizers, the appetizers came about 18 minutes later. We asked about the wait time for pizza and the waitress responded "what do you expect on a Friday night?" 45 minutes to an hour or so? We replied "thank you for the information, but we had another event coming up in about an hour". We asked what would be the fastest items off the menu. We were told it was appetizers that we had already ordered. We declined to order anything else off the menu and asked for the check. The check came about 15 minutes after the request for the check. Then we had to wait again another 15 minutes or so for the check to be picked up and my credit card returned. A disappointing experience on multiple levels. I would not recommend visiting...