Iron Horse Brew Pub — Restaurant in Missoula

Visited the night of 8-21-2018. The waitress was very nice and accommodating. Wish I could rate front of house and back of house. Front of house gets a 4. Back of house would get a negative rating. This was a bad experience.

Wife and I ordered drinks. Mojito for me and a Strawberry drink of some sort for her. Hers was sub par, she drank about half. Mine was ridiculous, not sure what it was. It was like watered down lime juice with some leaves and rum in it. Waste of time for a Mojito. I sent it back and got a whisky and coke. Coke was so watered down it was just flat cola with whisky, very little ice. It was like it had sat out... but the waitress brought it back fairly quick, so no idea again what the Bar is doing or how they pulled that off. Kind of a disaster with two drinks in a row being like that. However, hoping the food would be good... We had ordered the wings and some fries. I used to come here years ago for their crispy kitchen hot wings. So damn good. What they brought out was a joke. They were slathered in sauce, mushy like they had sat out and luke warm. The fries however were piping hot. So I am not sure where those wings came from but I also sent them back after trying two. (First one I thought maybe sat on the side and cooled off a little, but even one from the middle was just a little warm with red blood in the meat and not at all crispy like they were fried. This is insanely hazardous and can get folks sick. This is chicken!) It was like the wings were fried half way, then sat under a heat lamp waiting to get ordered and then were tossed in sauce when they were ordered by the customer. They were definitely not made to order, tossed to order more like it.

The wings were nothing like the piping hot crispy fries. Those were good. But at this point we were so disappointed we just left. Still got charged for half our stuff. It was so disappointing as I used to love going there years ago. What in the heck happened? I will surely not return.

The bummer part about this is that it is not the waitresses fault, she was indeed nice and returned my items that were not fit for consumption.... but surprised me as she still charged us for the rest when we did not really stay to eat them (fries and her drink) due to the disappointment. She received a nice tip on behalf of the horrendous bar and incompetent chef/cooks and her good attitude. I used to serve tables and this would be so tough to work with, I can only imagine how it goes the rest of the night.

Who does the quality control there? You need to fire that person and get back on Track, seriously. This wasn't just one item, but several, and one that could get...

Had a tale of two experiences here. Went there late last Saturday night for a friend's birthday and had the best server. There were a lot of us which I know can always be stressful, but if she was stressed out I could not tell. She was friendly, kind, attentive, and went above and beyond for us. The three stars this review has are purely based off of how great this server was and the night time bartenders. Huge shout outs to how awesome they were. Thank you!

Then I go on football Sunday, the very next day. Several of the TVs are left on screens that say "Thanks for watching the NFL Sunday ticket." But that game is over. A friend of mine requests that the TV be changed, the bartender says "People are still watching that game." There is no game on the TV. There is nothing on the TV except for a still image telling all of us there is no game. Ten minutes later our server comes over, we ask if the TV can be changed, she shrugs off the question. The one TV I was watching, that was right in front of our table, that was actually on a live football game, gets changed to an interview with some race car driver. Racing isn't even happening, it is an interview with someone that no one can hear. So not only were they refusing to change TVs to games for a good period of time, they then change the one TV that we were watching to something else entirely. Our server made us feel entirely unwelcome. Not even allowing us to order a second round of drinks before she brings us the ticket and is ready to close us out. Then there is the absolutely ridiculous 3% fee for running a debit or credit card. What?? Is the Iron Horse really charging people for using the most common form of payment now? Not a single other bar downtown charges such a fee. Not another restaurant. Nothing.

After we closed our tab, we went to Meaghar Bar to watch the rest of the games, were greeted with better service, kinder service, and faster service. I don't know how a place can vary so much from performance level from one day to the next, literally less than a 24 hour difference split the two visits. Our night server was so great that we came back the next day to be greeted with the exact opposite of her service. It's a shame. But I know where I will not be going to watch...

We went out for a Friday date night around 5 PM. The restaurant was operating in a "seat yourself" mode, and we were greeted (or rather, barely acknowledged) by a younger server who clearly didn’t want to be there. His apathy set the tone early on.

We started with the mussels, which were good as usual—that was the highlight. We also ordered two specialty cocktails. I got the Double Mule, which tasted overwhelmingly like syrup, with none of the balance you'd expect from a crafted drink.

Unfortunately, the ambiance was completely ruined by what seemed to be copyright-free AI-generated music. The bass was cranked up so loud that all we could hear was an obnoxious, constant thumping—especially bad since we were seated directly under a speaker. It was distracting and unpleasant.

Dinner was even more disappointing. My wife ordered the halibut, which turned out to be two sad, nugget-sized pieces of fish. Honestly, they looked and tasted like something you’d pull from the frozen food aisle—not freshly prepared or hand-battered as one would expect from a restaurant. The texture and flavor were completely off. We asked for extra fries and received just a small handful. For $20, we were served what amounted to two glorified fish sticks and some fries.

To make matters worse, neither of us finished our meals, and the server didn’t bother to ask if anything was wrong or if we needed anything else. No concern, no follow-up, just indifference.

We won’t be coming back, and I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. There are too many better options out there...