Top Hat — Restaurant in Missoula

Travelling through and was recommended to this place. I get this place is a special local thing and that's cool, it's definitely got atmosphere and love but the food was straight up not worth it and the service matched. 5pm on a Wednesday, what's up? It's not like it was busy but somehow everything seemed rushed. We sat right next to the bar at a table but our beers came 13 min later- and that's real time. Our server zipped by us many times in that time but no beer. Cool. Ordered the veggie melt and the bottom bread was wet by the time it got to our table. My husband took 2 bites and put a napkin over it- he quit your food, man. The Jackfruit tacos were a little bland but the tortillas on them were hard (flour?) and tasteless, and all you have to do is use traditional yellow corn tortillas and put "some" green on it to punch up flavor. Just copy a Mexican taco truck- that's how it should taste. The pickle chips... we ordered them first and they came out with the entrees but the taste- it's like battered and fried sugar discs. Maybe the overly gritty texture from the cornmeal batter is your thing, but they just don't go down without a swig of beer. The tater tots are not tater tots they are fried Mashed potato-balls, just call it that. And i finished the tacos but man did I focus more on picking apart the food rather than tasting it- and my sibling is the professional chef in the family not me... I cannot recommend it. The space is...

We have had two really bad customer service experiences with the Top Hat over the course of this past month, and sadly, we will not be going back. We ordered take-out w/ a delivery from Grub Hub for a small "social distancing" gathering, and when the order was dropped off, half of our order was missing. We called the Top Hat and were told there was nothing they could do. We lost $60+ and couldn't feed half of the people. Previous to the GrubHub fiasco, we ordered take-out and went down to pick it up. Our first time picking up food, we asked two different staff members where we should pick-up and were told "Go to the bar, I'm too busy to answer you right now." So, we went to the bar and the bartender ignored us for a full 15 minutes. No kidding. There were 4 people social distancing at the bar. Unbelievable. The wait staff and bartender were all standing around at the other end of the bar talking. When our food was placed on the bar we walked over and picked it up, while everyone ignored us. This is why we decided to order through GrubHub, and I've already told you how well that went. I understand that COVID has required restaurants to re-think operations, and we want to support local establishments. With these two bad experiences, what is clear to us is that the Top Hat has forgotten how to put the customer first, and we will not...

Food: food was good, but overall the menu is pretty standard bar stuff. Both appetizers and main dishes came out before our first and only round of drinks (just wine and beer- not sure why that took so long) which isn’t the ideal order of service, obviously. The chicken Cobb salad was very generous and I appreciated the high ratio of toppings to greens. Definitely would order that again.

Service: our server was really sweet and friendly. A little absent but clearly she was overly busy due to staffing, which is no personal fault of hers. We could tell they were all hustling. Rounding up to 4 stars from 3.5 due to her pleasant service. FYI: We were there during happy hour and although the patio was pretty well attended, there were very few tables sat inside.

Space: The patio is large, although not especially atmospheric. A minor annoyance is not being able to scoot your chair in all the way due to the design of the table legs. I would rather not have to lean over my food.

Overall it was a totally fine dining experience but nothing I’d go out of my way to recommend to a friend. I think if you are a burger and beer person, maybe this would be a good spot to try but that wouldn’t solve the issue of food/drink timing and staffing.

They do have live music and I might be inclined to come check out...