Union Underground — Restaurant in Manchester

Excellent food, amazing drinks, great bartenders, and a great atmosphere- not to mention the location!

Let’s start with the GOOD- Jake our bartender made up for any frustrations that we felt when we were welcomed. He was very friendly, super fun, and extremely accommodating. He even made us some of their delicious apps. He was kind and thoughtful and shared our excitement about our event. For our friend not drinking, he created fun mocktails. We cannot thank him enough for making our time at Union Underground enjoyable. If you ever make it to Union Underground be sure to ask for Jake and treat him well. I hope our tip went directly to him and any staff who helped make our visit enjoyable.

But it pains me to say that the initial interaction we had with the owner or manager was far from pleasant. At 1:30pm a group of my friends on a Shrek themed bachelorette party showed up to grab a few apps and drinks. This was stated and Union Underground was our second stop so all of us were far from the state you’d assume to see a bachelorette party in. The owner or manager stated that they were booked until 3:30. Understanding that we should have made a reservation our party member asked about the bar that only had 2 people occupying 2 of the 14 chairs. The owner/manager said it was first come first serve but knowing we could need 7 seats in a row (which there were not), the owner/manager said there was not enough room unless to the TWO girls who were at the bar would slide down- and she also mentioned that we were not allowed to get food. Our party member kindly asked the girls if they would move down one chair so that there were 7 chairs in a row for us to sit at, which they, not surprising, agreed to. It’s sad that this was our first impression but I’m glad to know that beyond the front door there is great group of servers and bartenders who deserve...

Great menu for upscale spin on comfort foods and healthier options as well in a unique setting. So why the two star review? The problem with the place is the crapshoot for dealing with the co-owner/manager. Our party has visited the restaurant 4 times now and two of those visits were great. The host on duty made us feel welcome and the servers and food were excellent - 5 stars. The other two visits we encountered the co-owner who immediately made the experience uncomfortable. This last visit we had a party of 9 with 5 being kids 10 to 15. The host we first spoke to was friendly and worked to help us. Then the co-owner/manager came over and told us they don’t normally take parties over 8, that she hopes one of us is small, and that we could only stay for 1.5 hours. It was about 5:15pm on a Friday. So the tone went from us being welcomed guests to being a nuisance and on the clock to get in and get out. At about $50 per seat with tip, that’s not an experience I’d expect. I get that being in the restaurant business is tough and stressful to say the least but, if you can’t at least pretend to like your patrons, perhaps it’s time...

If I could give it 0 stars I would…. My wife and I were seated in our seats at 7:00 pm, and one of the partners sat us down without menus. The first interaction with ANYONE was 30 minutes later when they realized they never brought us menus. Tables were seated around us, but we were ignored. They finally brought us menus and took a drink order (a cider and water). The drinks came after about 5-10 min.

After being there for nearly an 45 minutes we put in our food order, a Cesar salad and a rare burger. We waited 30 minutes more for our food, which never came. We finally got ahold of our waitress who looked puzzled why we didn’t have food. She checked the kitchen and learned the kitchen lost our ticket so our food was never cooked. They re-entered our order and the food came out eventually, but my burger resembled a hockey puck, aka it was so well done). I told the waitress, but was told they were out of burgers….

We were told the whole meal was comped, which was appreciated, but overall, we were there for like 2.5 hours.

TLDR: we were ignored, never got water refills, food got lost, when we eventually got our food which...