Roak Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Marshall

Finally was able to visit this place. You can tell the building used to be a warehouse, and from the outside it looks huge. But about half of the place is where they brew their beer; the restaurant/bar area is not that big. They have a large warehouse-size door that slides open for when warmer days are here. And when I say door, I should probably tell you it's pretty much the entire wall. Outside they've set up some tables and chairs as well. I'm grateful that my first time there it was a 70 degree day so I could experience it at it's best. Inside they have a bar area at the back that's fairly large in length. The walls are painted black and they have large chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. Two long drapes hang from each side of the back wall with the ROAK name and a picture of a doberman and in the center is some kind of odd piece of are with red lights interwoven. All of this makes you think of a dark, goth like place but somehow it pulls off being inviting which I found interesting to have such a juxtaposition. Beer review...tried two: Mean Street which is an amber with a slightly bitter taste. I enjoyed it because the bitterness (not an IPA fan) was subtle and didn't linger. The other, since it was such a beautiful, sunny day, was the Melonfest. Which had a hint of cantaloupe. Maybe that doesn't sound tempting - it didn't to me at first - but again, subtlety is key and I really enjoyed it. For the food I tried the oven roasted turkey panini w/ spicy pepper aioli and that was delicious; mostly due to that sauce. Friend ordered the pizza and he liked it as well and it did look tasty as hell. Menu is pretty much regular bar food with little twists; which seems to be the way most new places are going. The crowd was a good mix of both younger and older. I'm planning to come back more often and trying more of their...

So I called in a takeout pizza order to this place based on reviews from Google. I arrived approximately 10 minutes later with my three and a half year old daughter. They seemed fairly busy but not to the point where there was any wait or line of people in the front. I went to the podium and waited to ask someone where I could go to pay for and get my pizza order. The lady who eventually approached the podium said I could do that at the bar. So I went to the bar, found an open seat which I stood behind, and waited. A long time! The two female bartenders seemed busy at first so I didn't mind waiting my turn. Then after quite a while of waiting as well as holding my daughter, who was getting a little antsy now, I did get curious. Not at the time it was taking to make my pizza, but rather to get someone behind the bar to address and help me. After one of the bartenders asked the nice couple next to us if they were doing okay or needed anything, I figured we were next. Then she started making her way away from us down the line. That nice couple whipped their heads around to me in shock and seemingly almost embarrassed. Being a man of color I've had plenty of this treatment in the past from places just like this. So instead I chose to spend my money in place that welcomed my daughter and I, and appreciated our business. I passed about four pizza places on my way there, so I had no problem getting a great pizza for a kid movie night with my daughter. This review may be buried among the others and that is truly unfortunate, because I patronized this place based on the reviews from google. So you can't always trust the review tallies. I hope the right people read my review, and are made aware of my experience...

Very poor service. We had to flag down another server in order to get any service. Once our server appeared we ordered our beers and an appetizer. She came back with the beers and we ordered a pizza. Forty minutes past... No appetizer. I started to think she had forgotten about our appetizer and realized soon after that I was right. She dropped off the pizza and told us that the kitchen had "lost" the ticket for the appetizer. She brought us two plates for the pizza, one that was dirty. We asked her for two new plates (there were three of us) and she disappeared. About five minutes later we noticed her at another table taking a food order. I got up, walking right past her and got a couple plates at the bar. Ten minutes later she reappeared with two plates. I also had to get up to go to the bar to ask for a water for our daughter. It's like the waitress didn't even notice her.. bringing only two plates and not even asking if she wanted anything to drink. In the end the waitress dropped off the appetizer to go, stating that they "had an extra". Right. The pizza was good and the beer was ok but we were appalled by the service. Will...