Dave & Buster's Madison — Restaurant in Madison

This service here is horrible! We went on a Saturday at 2pm and stood in line, waiting to be seated, for 45 minutes with only 2 people already there waiting in line. We were there to meet another group, who were already seated and eating so I asked a person who stopped at the desk we were waiting at if we could be seated soon since our other people were already in the dining area, eating. She said we could go in, otherwise we would be waiting for who knows how much longer. It was unclear if she was the hostess, a server, or had another role there. It was difficult to know who was supposed to be seating people. That dining area (on the left) had about half the seating open at cleaned tables so it made no sense why people weren't being seated. There was a huge line behind us as well and it looked like a manager who walked out to the dining area and didn't even seem concerned about the huge line with no host/hostess handling the situation. We were seated and my sister asked two times for a high chair. It was never brought to us. The waiter took our drink order and after 10 minutes brought drinks for two of the 6 people and one was only about 4/5 full. Our other group had eaten and they said it was extremely slow service and not worth the high prices in the menu. The food would have been good if it was hot when they received their meals I was told. One person in their group was still waiting for his food 45 minutes after ordering. Our waiter never came back to take our food order after dropping off the 2 drinks so after 15 minutes we decided to not eat there and we left to get game tickets and just do that part of the visit for my niece's birthday. I don't have any personal knowledge of how the food or drinks were and I won't probably ever be back. So, we went back to standing in line to get a card to play games with. My nephew saw the advertising for buying online to skip standing in line, plus it was 30% off for more tokens so it sounded like a good idea. He said they took his money but didn't give him the tokens. He wound up in line getting a card anyway. They did refund his money online but he was left not understanding what had happened. Played some games, which were pretty fun...giant pacman and asteroids were my favorite. I played about 8 games with my 60 tokens for $12...probably within 45 minutes or so. I just find it ridiculous standing in line for that long without any staff being concerned and wanting to provide customer service and then waiting at our table again with such poor service again. I usually give people and businesses the benefit of the doubt and try to see things from their point of view, like if they are super busy or if other customers were being jerks, when I write reviews. I don't know if it was a short staffing situation or what, but middle of the afternoon, on a Saturday, in Madison requires much better preparedness for service than was here today. Absolutely horrible...

Went here for a company team event and it was underwhelming. There were 11 of us. We arrived around 4pm and my boss who had organized the event had ordered some sort of group special. We received drink tickets, Power Cards and this package came with 2 trays of appetizers including burger sliders, buffalo wings, ribs, BBQ Brisket sliders(not really sure on these), chicken nuggets, and mini pizzas. That food arrived almost as soon as we sat down, but the server didn’t take our drink order until we were most of the way through the food. The burger sliders were tough. The chicken nuggets were good. The “brisket” looked like Steakumms. The ribs were good. The wings were nothing special. The little pizzas were a joke. Puff pastry with some tomato sauce and cheese. In addition, we ordered the Trio Dip and the Nachos with chicken. Neither were impressive and were expensive for what you got. Overall the food was just average. I would not recommend coming here to eat. I am dealing with the some sort of adverse reaction to something I ate here as I write this. We seemed to suffer from what I saw in many reviews. Apparently the wait staff is not trained to clear or bus tables. Our appetizer plates sat dirty with rib bones on them for the entire visit. Also noticed another table where the party had left and dirty dishes were left on the table for at least a half hour. There is no excuse for that. Hire some bus staff. There is nothing worse than walking in to a place with dirty dishes on tables.

The gaming area is fun, but our cards didn’t work consistently and when we asked for help we were told “we weren’t swiping the card right”. That shouldn’t be a thing. I get it could happen occasionally, but one should not have to fiddle so much with the card to get it to work. I agree with other reviews about the cards “leaving money on the table” due to how they calculate the pointS deducted.

Until the service and food improves, I cannot recommend the Dave and Busters in Madison.

EDIT: I responded to their suggestion from the Auto-response to my review and went to the link to report my experience to corporate, I received a form letter in the mail saying they will take my suggestions very seriously and that my concerns were reported to the GM and he will be sure to address the issues I reported. I am not sure I believe them as many, many reviews before mine reported similar issues about service and unbussed tables, etc. They also did not provide any sort of incentive to return. I am not sure what effect they were hoping the letter would have on my opinion, but I am pretty sure it was the opposite. I feel even less compelled to...

I’ve been a server for 5+ years and was extremely disappointed by the dining experience. I never leave reviews, and I have pretty basic/low standards for servers, but this was really bad. Everything seemed very unorganized from the jump. They need to create a system for seating tables/server rotation because its clear that some servers had no tables (a server literally complained about having a completely empty section) while ours had three huge parties (10-17 tops) plus us. I’ve worked at good restaurants and bad ones (that almost closed many times) and the lack of systems, accountability and hospitality reminded me a lot of the bad restaurant I worked at. The server took our drink order twice because they forgot they had taken it the first time, which is totally forgivable if it didnt take 40 minutes to get our appetizer (a pretzel with cheese) and one $10 titos w/ red bull. He claimed there was an issue with the computer, but I had a hard time believing that he didnt just forget to enter it in (as a disclaimer we did give him the benefit of the doubt and still tipped 20% because who knows what happened for sure). Even if there was, it’s common curtesy to remove an app if it takes that long to make or at least have a manager touch base with the table/deliver the food and apologize. It took another 20+ minutes to get our entrees. The entire dinner took 90+ minutes, which is INSANE. the standard is 45 minutes with 60 minutes being a long time. The standard wait time for food is 15 min, with 20+ being considered a long time…. We waited an HOUR for our entree, which was mediocre. It was also difficult to get refills (we got one refill, close to the end of the dinner). Our server was nice but the management just seems to be in shambles. If I was serving a table and the food wasnt even put in until 40 minutes after they sat down, my manager or owner would be apologizing up and down and offering free deserts, reduced prices and taking items off the menu. When I handed the check back, I requested a discount for the wait time and received a 10% discount which was pretty bare minimum- the app itself was $14. Again, most managers would have comped the app and the first drink for how long it took and probably would have offered something else on top of it. My boyfriend and I both decided that we would never eat there again because it was just the most ridiculous experience with a pretty hefty price tag- I could go downtown and get a high-end cocktail for the same price as my tiny titos and redbull. The games and atmosphere are fun though and we will definitely be coming back for...