Westrail Tap & Grill — Restaurant in Lakewood

With the online reviews being good, we chose to go and give it a try. I really wanted to like it as it's really close to my home.

I arrived with my friend on a busy Saturday night. We were immediatley seated. It took a bit for our server to greet us and get our drink orders, no problem, the place was full.

After ordering drinks and appetizers, we chatted and waited, and waited, and waited. Drinks finally arrived and were decent, and we ordered entrees at this time. We continued to sip, chat and wait for aps...these finally came about 40 minutes after the order.

Aps were good. The Asada fries were off the chain! The green chili cup was strange, it mostly just tasted of cumin...

Aps were done and we continued to chat and wait for dinner...time now is about 1 hour from original drink order. We waited...

And waited... Waited some more...

Finally, at the 1.5hour from original order time our entrees arrive, minus 1 side dish. The server said it would be a few more minutes for the baked potato, but they wanted us to at least be eating as we waited.

Both burgers ordered were decent. One major flaw was the spicy Elvis burger as described said it came with fried jalapeno. Who new it was a huge jalapeno cut in half long way, with stem and ALL seeds still remaining. It seemed strange, and was way too big so it got cut down and we pulled out some seeds. As we were waiting I noticed another table get it and do the same, cut it down. That burger came with a side of mash potatoes that were good.

My burger was the Umami Tsunamis. It was good. I ordered it with a baked potato...so now after all the waiting, I was hungry and ate my burger...no potatoes arrived yet. It came 15min after the entree arrived. I had unfortunately already finished my burger, and my friend was scooping up the last few bites of her meal.

Now for the potato...rock hard and room temperature at best. Server took it back...20 minutes later a manager brought a new one and immediately I noticed the cheese wasn't melting at all and I was told don't worry, it's hot the cheese had just been put on...calling the BS, I grabbed it, opened it and stuck my finger into the middle of another hard, and cold potatoes.

I didn't want another at this point, as we were there so long and we were tired. The manager took it off the bill.

We payed and left...total time 2.5hours.

Now I gave 2 stars as there was good things about this place. I am in the industry, and understand that bad night in the kitchen happen, nobody is perfect. It's just unfortunate that my table got the short end of the stick.

I do want to try it again, and really hope that next time is a better experience and that I can change the rating and give...

Westrail is a decent local spot but has gone down over the past 5 years since we started going there. It used to be really great and we'd go there 3-4 times a month, now we might go there once in 3 or 4 months. We still go for the smoked buffalo wings, which are good.

Pros: Service is usually good and it is usually vibrant and busy with other locals. Their beer selection is great. Some of our menu favs would be the nachos, the buffalo wings, and the chicken tenders. The reuben could be improved but they have several other good options that are worth a try.

They have some of the best smoked buffalo chicken wings around. They're usually pretty meaty and tasty. Sometimes to go orders get jipped and the wings are smaller or there are fewer to the order, not sure if it's a quality control thing or if to go orders don't get priority.

Cons: They changed the batter on the fish and chips to a "more traditional" batter according to our server a while ago - the old batter from about 5 years ago was definitely better and we're voting for it to come back. Same goes for the chicken tenders. Bummer, we used to rave about it and made special trips for it as it was probably the best fish and chips around. Westrail, if you're listening, please bring back the old recipe!!

Take out has been pretty inconsistent over the past two years - we've gotten charged for full orders of wings and only received half, which has happened twice. We've also received really burnt and dried out chicken tenders two different times. Fries are hit or miss - we had to return a to go order of fries because they were so badly cooked, or lack there of. We've just learned to check the orders before walking out the door.

Their pricing has gone up a lot over the past two years as well. While I certainly understand things have needed adjustments due to tough times, but the pricing seems to have jumped disproportionately. Unfortunately, the higher prices have deterred us from eating there. If they were more consistent and the quality was higher to match, it would make more sense, but the higher prices are inversely proportional to...

Positives: -Average sports bar atmosphere.

-The staff are friendly

-carne asada fries were good

That's where the positive stop, which is not good.

Negatives: -As I was watching the bartenders pour beer from the tap, it was pumping out as much foam as Beer, the staff are constantly dumping beer to make up for the excess foam. Wasting lots of Beer and money. Now of course this is not their fault, but the owner should definitely look into fixing the problem. on top of the excess foam, the beer lines are also so dirty. the beer taste off and not what it should be.

chaotic ordering system; I watched the staff be constantly confused on who ordered what, and which food items went to which table.

-Long wait times for beer refills , around 8 to 10 mins after ordering. I could have easily waited longer than 10 minutes, but I'm only estimating since I wasn't timing them. It wasn't only my table, but other tables are ran me sat with empty beer glasses for some time after ordering more.

-The people hosting events at the bar are drinking while hosting , making for very confused and intoxicated event host . This was however, entertaining to watch them make a fool of themselves, but pretty annoying to deal with.

-Bathroom floors are sticky, and No privacy at bathroom stalls . No dividing wall to prevent people from seeing your man bits, or you from seeing theirs. That's not what I go to a bar for, if I wanted to see that, I would just go to a male strip club or watch adult entertainment on my phone.

The stool I was sitting in was very loose and wobbly. I was somewhat concerned that it might break, just by sitting on it.

Overall : I would not recommend going to this bar. If the bathrooms are dirty, the beer lines are dirty, I can only imagine what the kitchen or the back of the house looks like. I would be afraid to even see what it looks like at the back of the house. Wouldn't surprise me if they had a roach problem in the kitchen Or never cleaned it. Just go to another bar in the neighborhood, like Old Chicago or...