Avenue Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Milwaukee

After a poor experience at Build-a-Burger next door, we walked into Avenue Bar & Grill simply because it was nearby and we were trying to get lunch. I wish we had been in a different area of Milwaukee so we would have had another option, because our experience wasn’t great. The food was surprisingly good, but that was the only redeeming thing about our visit.

Maybe the staff at the Avenue have never had children eat in their restaurant (although I doubt that, as it is in a hotel). We walked in and were eventually greeted by a server who yelled “everyone just calm down and be quiet!”. She probably saw the looks on our faces because she quickly backtracked and said she was talking to the other staff members who were nearby, but it definitely seemed like she was talking to my friend’s two small children. I would have walked out, but as we had already struck out getting a table at Build-a-Burger and we were on a time crunch, we ended up staying. The restaurant was fairly empty, so we were able to sit at a booth, so the kids didn’t need booster seats.

I ended up ordering the Caprese BLT and waffle fries. The fries were solid, and the sandwich was pretty nice. My sister went with the lunch buffet and enjoyed the options at the salad bar. My friend went with the Cheddar Mac Melt, which looked interesting with the mac and cheese on the sandwich. She said it was good. The kids enjoyed their mac and cheese with fries and fruit.

Our server ended up being the woman who had yelled when we first walked in. The service was just okay for the duration of our visit. She dropped off the bill right after we received our food, which was appreciated so we could leave at our leisure since it was the lunch hour, but it took quite a long time to return the card, and even longer to flag her down to request a couple of boxes.

The manager(?), who at one point helped seat us, seemed like a pleasant man, but the server who yelled, probably at a woman who was 8 months pregnant and two small children, really spoiled the place for us. Although the food was good I...

The manager is extremely rude. I am not sure what her name is, but African American lady that was in the evening shift Thursday night came to ask me why I did not like the Artichoke and dip I returned, the bartender was very sweet and though I offered to pay for it, she saw that It was barely touched, she said she would get the manager to comp it. While at it, the manager came and at first she said she wants to understand what was wrong with it, I explained it was very clumpy and it wasn't great and I apologized for the inconvenience. She then wanted to know exactly what was wrong, so I explained again and I said it wasn't creme at all and just tasted awful. She asked again, and since I own a Catering business, I told her 'ma'am, I know what it should taste like but as soon as It hit the table it was clumpy and just not good. She still pressed and with an attitude goes "since you have a catering business, maybe I can tell the chef what was wrong" at this point I looked at her like, are you serious? I said ma'am I don't know what else you want to hear. Would you like me to tell you what your chef did wrong? - it seems like he put too much creme cheese in it therefore it was very clumpy. She then turned around and comped it but just her deminor in the scenerio and how she spoke to the young lady that was bartending was enough for me to get on here and be upset about. No manager should treat their employees as if they beneath them. Her energy was not appreciated and ruined my experience, probably...

6 of us were staying at bouble tree and we decided to go down stairs to get food at the restaurant. We were seated pretty quickly but had to wait 20 minutes to be served water. They didnt have enough menus so 1 of us had to share we also were only given 5 glasses and when i received mine it was dirty. After 30 minutes we finally got our ordered. It took another hour just to receive our food. Afterwards we got our bill.... theres 20% 'gratuity' that we were not informed of when we sat down. And not only that my friend and i had the same order, mine at $34 theres at $64???? After that we were done with the poor service and asked for the manager. He was very apologetic for the poor service and said they were busy (there was only 4 tables seated) and waved the 20%. All in all it took us TWO HOURS from sit down and to pay. Im only leaving 2 stars because the manager was nice and the food was good. (We also went to build a burger and they informed us AT THE START there was a gratuity of 18%...