The Free House Pub — Restaurant in Middleton

Our party of 6 had a pretty miserable experience at The Free House Pub. Food took a while to come out, which is understandable, but we received no attention or communication from our server while we waited. Once the food arrived the real problems began. The burgers which were ordered as Medium and Medium-Rare were both quite well done. One of our group did not receive her meal at all, but we waited, assuming that it would be out shortly (food is sometimes brought out at different times after all). After almost 10 minutes, in which time we had not seen our server once, I went and found him to ask when the last meal would be out. He wasn't apologetic at all and essentially just walked away. He returned to our table to say they had to "make more veggie burgers" and then again disappeared for another 15 minutes (at this point we were keeping track of time). After getting the last of the food we again spent a significant amount of time waiting to see our server so that we could ask for our checks. As he refused to stop by the table, a member of our group found him and asked if we could please get the checks. We proceeded to watch him punch some things into the computer, go behind the bar and take some drink orders, and then walk away to another part of the restaurant. Several minutes later he came back to the bar area and our friend asked again for the checks, and our server looked totally stunned and said something to the effect of "oh yeah, sorry." He did apologize for the wait once he brought the checks but it was way too little too late. The very late veggie burger was comped, which was probably the only other positive. I'd also like to note that the venue didn't seem particularly busy and there was an abundance of servers running around. We have all had slow dining experiences due to a backed up kitchen or staff stretched too thin - this wasn't that.

Mistakes happen, miscommunications occur; the real issue is not owning those mistakes and working extra hard to provide top notch service once you've gotten off on the wrong foot. Mediocre (and incorrectly prepared) food + stellar service can still make for a highly positive experience. Unfortunately, our group had a wholly negative experience and would be incredibly unlikely to return to The...

No exaggerations here. It was a good place to eat before the pandemic - now, sadly bad.

In short, it was less than Culver's quality food at 2-3x the price and took 2hrs+ to have a normal single-course dinner.

Seated immediately, it took 20 min to get a drink from the bar, 1.5 hrs to get our food. The food was twice as expensive for what you get.

The food was not worth it and not tasty. My wife's beet salad had pistachio and goat cheese dust if any - for $13 it was just a spring mix salad with 3-4 pcs of pear and beet... My bluegill po-boy sandwich ($15) was poor on ingredients. The smallish bun had 4-5 dollar coin sized fried pieces of "fish" each less than 1/8th thick. The kids cheeseburger was slider diameter sized, 1/4 thick. - ($7) The cheese curds (which I ordered to come with the meal to save time) had the appearance of freezer burn. None of the items we ordered were well-prepared.

Our waitress was poor - she never introduced herself. No kids menus were ever offered. Other tables with other wait staff came and left in less time than us. I actually assumed she was bussing the table and we were waiting for our waiter(ess) still until I asked her who we could order our food from. Half an hr after we placed our order, she told us that the food would be longer because the kitchen was behind, but didn't provide a sense of why, or how much longer, and didn't offer us anything while we were inconvenienced. I had to flag her down to get our check. The kids got juice (not included in price of kids meal). As the only proactive thing the waitress did was that she brought refills without asking, to which I later found were added to the bill. I've worked as a waiter and the pace of every step was painfully slow and reactive / passive. A normal dinner should not...

It was amazing. I don't give a 5/5 review lightly. This place earned it. The building is great, very cute, great place for a date as it's quite romantic. They have some nice outdoor seating as well. The cheese curds were excellent, some of the best I have had. The garlic Parmesan fries were out of this world, lots of flavor, cooked to perfection, a touch messy to eat and you will have garlic breath after eating them. Fair warning. The sandwiches we got were great, not just really good but great. I got the beef dip (I forget the exact name, i think it was called the prime rib dip). It was amazing. The beef was nice and tender, the au ju had a great flavor not just salt in a liquid like you sometimes get, the cheese was high quality, applied evenly over the entire sandwich, and properly melted. The bread was also a nice high point that is often overlooked. I think they must get their bread from a local baker because it had flavor and a great texture. She got the burger and it was perfect, a lot of places you order medium rare and you get either medium or rare, this was actually medium rare. The flavor was great and the toppings were proportional to the burger, you didn't feel overwhelmed by them nor were they skimpy. And while the prices look a touch high on the menu, once you have eaten you feel like you got your money's worth. Just an all around homerun. I'd recommend this...