Dexter's Pub — Restaurant in Madison

Banned from the restaurant because we wanted extra ingredients on a sandwich! 0 stars!

I used to call in pick-up orders for my fiance at Dexter’s Pub. He liked a steak sandwich with extra ingredients. We ordered about 10-15 times in a 4-month span, and the lady who works there was so friendly every time. One day, the manager named Nick refused to add any extra ingredients to the sandwich I ordered. He said I have to order the sandwich as such because it’s too complex of an order, and he will only make them as they are on the menu. I ordered the same thing another day, and the same lady made the order, no issues! Ordered another day, and it was Nick this time. He said he’s not going to make the sandwich. Essentially, refused to serve me any food!

There was one time I picked up a call in order 4 hours late because my fiance had an emergency and couldn’t pick it up anymore. I called them to say I’m coming, and they don’t need to remake the food. She said, "the food is still here waiting," meaning they didn’t remake it. Picked up the food, everything was fine.

On another day, I made a phone order. After I said what I wanted to order, Nick said, “Are you the one who orders it with all that stuff on it?” I said, “I won’t be ordering it like that.” He said, “You ordered this before and didn’t pick up your food. We’re not making this for you. You won’t be welcomed here again. See ya.” I couldn’t hear him that good, so I said, “What did you say?” By then he had already hung up the phone. I called back and said, “Excuse me, I couldn't hear you, did you say I didn’t pay for my food?” He said, “Yes, we waited and you didn’t come, so we lost out on money because of it.” I said, “I did pay for the sandwich, actually. I came and picked it up.” He said, “No you didn’t,” and hung up again. I called back and said, “I picked up the sandwich 4 hours after making the order and paid for it. You guys did not make a new sandwich either.” He said, “No, I was here and you didn’t pay for it,” then hung up again! Right after that, my fiance’s friend called to make an order. He said he will get the steak sandwich, and the same man who talked to me minutes before told him, “We aren’t serving at this time.” It was at open hours! Mind you, my fiance and his friend are both Ethiopian and probably sound very similar on the phone. I’m assuming he thought it was my fiance (he knows my fiance’s voice because he comes in to pick up the food sometimes). Good luck to any Ethiopian man who makes an order there!

I’ve read other bad reviews about Dexter's Pub. Common issues were the bartenders were working while drunk, waitress’s were rude and didn’t come to the table to check on customers, food was cold, overcooked, not cooked enough, or tasted off; a dead mouse was found on the back porch where the back entrance is, and most importantly, the workers were rude! Check it out...

Bummer. Wouldn't let us pull tables together for our families. Had no reasonable explanation and waitress responded poorly...food is not good enough to pull this. I hope that your owner hears about the situition we endured Friday night concerning the ill-conceived seating policy that didn't allow us to combine tables with our friend and his two small children who drove over to meet our large group. Initially, we were told we could be seated until our entire party was there, so we waited patiently and had drinks. Our entire party not being there yet was irrelevant because the host and wait staff put the tables together for our party, they just wouldn't let us sit with our kids until the last 2 members of our party arrived...so the whole principle of letting others use the table until our party showed up was undermined. When we did get our table, after 30 minutes of staring at an empty restaurant, our waitress not so subtly indicated that us ordering drinks was an inconvenience to her. Finally when the last members of our party arrived (a father and his two small daughters) we were told we couldn't pull a table up, because it would inconvenience our waitress (even though anyone could plainly see that there would be no inconvenience to serving the adjacent table unless she made it a point of serving from a position against the west wall of you establishment). When we did try to arrange something suitable we were told "you people do this every time you come in", by the waitress. The manager apologized but made it clear that she couldn't really justify the decision either, beyond it being a minor inconvenience. It bums me out. We're members it the community and our request wasn't extravagant. There are plenty of places on the East side with as good or better food and drinks. I look forward...

I had high expectations when my husband and I stepped in at peak dinner time on a Friday. We weren't disappointed when we (luckily) found seats at the bar during march madness. The taplist is extensive, with a diverse list of both local and regional brews. The bartender was friendly and fast, despite the aforementioned cluster of basketball-watchers. We waited only about 50% of our quoted 45 minutes, and were then given a table in the main dining section. Here's where our experience took a turn. Our server was friendly, but seemingly stretched too thin. We ordered a cheese curd appetizer, which our awesome bartender ended up bringing to us instead of our server. The curds were of similar quality to a Culver's restaurant (see: disappointing) and were served in a single layer in a teacup saucer. We tend to use a bar's cheese curds as a litmus test for the quality of their kitchen, so this did not bode well for the catfish po'boy and fiery pork sandwich to come. Happily, my husband's pork sandwich was moist and tasty. Unfortunately, my catfish was bland and the bread soggy. When we finished up with dinner, we had to wait an extended amount of time for our server to come and ask if we wanted boxes + our check. Overall, I give the bar 5, the food and service on the restaurant section 2 (although my husband would probably rate them higher). Based on other reviews here, I admit, I did grade them on a pretty tough scale. But bars with good beer lists and good cheese curds in Madison can be found on nearly...