Buckley's Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Milwaukee

Last night (Saturday) was our 3rd meal at Buckley's in 3 years. The service has always been and remains excellent. Atmosphere has always been nice, except that the dining areas lack any sound baffling and so are extremely noisy when crowded, as it was last night. In the past, the food has usually been very good, except that pastas tended to be undercooked. (I know what "al dente" is supposed to be--have been to Italy 3 times and have been eating my Italian born mother-in-law's pasta based holiday dishes for over 40 years. Last night's Buckley's pasta would have been "al dente" if it stayed in boiling water another 1-2 minutes.) Last time I was here, my son-in-law and I both felt it necessary to send our respective undercooked pasta dishes back. The kitchen "remade" them but mine came back still undercooked. (The joke at the table was that the kitchen probably let it sit for 5 minutes, then popped it into the microwave for 15 seconds to rewarm it.) Last night, the pasta dish we shared suffered from the exact same problem but we did not bother sending it back. My Wife also noted that, unlike in the past, the pasta dish was not accompanied by bread. Our shared "smash burger and fries" was disappointing. The burger was over-cooked and the bun was dry (approaching stale). The fries were either left in the cooking oil a tad too long or the oil was dirty--leaving exteriors overly dark. (I was a part-time deep fry cook for a couple of years in college---cooking oil gradually gets "dirty" and, thereby eventually starts to pickup and pass on unpleasant flavors to new food cooked in it. Thus, it needs to be periodically changed out for fresh oil.) In our 60's, we generally do not use any added salt when cooking at home so we may be oversensitive to added salt compared to the general restaurant population but we both noted that the burger and particularly the fries were over-salted. To eat the fries (at least half of which I left uneaten) I had to first brush tangible excess salt off of them with my fingers. Some sound baffling, slightly longer pasta cook times, and a lighter touch on the salt would restore my highest esteem to this still...

We had a very unpleasant experience at Buckley's Restaurant today. We stopped by on a whim Sunday morning and learned that it would be a 30 minute wait before we could be seated. As we were standing outside discussing our options amongst our party, one of the customers sitting alone outside overheard our conversation and told us that he would be leaving in 5 minutes therefore, we were welcome to take his table. He was a very friendly guy, in fact, encouraged us to join him at the table while he finished. We had a very enjoyable conversation together . He is a regular customer and was raving about the wonderful food and friendly service. After we exchanged introductions and he left, we sat at the table. It was at that point that the owner approached our table and said he didn't appreciate us 'hovering' over his customers, pressuring them to leave the table. He sarcastically said that he would make sure nobody 'hovered' over us. We were shocked. When we explained that we had been invited to join his customer in conversation we got a 'whatever' response from him. We promptly left and told him we would not be visiting his eatery again.

It's too bad the owner completely misinterpreted what he saw and treated us so rudely ... we've heard such good things about this place. We were moving our son into the neighborhood and were looking forward to something cool to drink along with a small bite to eat. Not sure why the owner said that to us???? This would have been the kind of place I would have come back to many times with my mom and friends. Never ate there before...I've been sad about this all day...don't understand why he would have said that to us. I really wanted to post this and then I read this: From the owner: “The goal of our family-owned and operated establishment is to provide our customers with an enjoyable dining experience in a comfortable...

We decided to try something new for our anniversary dinner this year. Chose this place after stumbling upon it via open table.

The atmosphere is a 5/5. Super cute little place. Inside is gorgeous. Parking was easy (and free)! Outside tables were nice (although wobbly) and the outside of the building is super cute. That part, was great. But that’s kind of where it ends.

Our server was very awkward and lingered around longer than necessary. It made me feel uncomfortable. He forgot to mention the special and didn’t tell us that they were out of the pork tenderloin until after my husband ordered it. So then he was put on the spot to find another item on the menu. It was just awkward. The food did come out super fast, that was a plus.

Food was meh. The focaccia was huge and pillowy, but so much olive oil. It was swimming in olive oil. The artichoke appetizer was pretty boring. I didn’t feel like I wanted to eat it, just felt like I needed to finish it because we paid for it. Our drinks were so, so. Didn’t really feel like there was any booze in mine. And then we got an espresso martini (waiter suggestion) that was gross. Tasted like straight liquor and was almost $20. Husband got the chicken piccata which he said was good but the only side was spinach with dressing. I got the mushroom pasta which was also good. But it tasted as though I could make it at home and the mushroom pieces were so small. I was disappointed. Finally we got dessert, I wanted the tuxedo chocolate cake but again, our waiter influenced the seasonal cheesecake on us, so we got that. Baileys cheesecake. It was fine, really sweet. Not many flavor notes other than just sweet. Didn’t taste baileys and it was drenched in caramel sauce.

Our bill was over $140 and we left disappointed. Personally I think there are many other (tastier) places to go in the area for special occasions. We won’t be...