Buggyworks Restaurant and Pub — Restaurant in Monroe

Overall: Immaculately clean with open kitchen. Incredible food (the local cheeses! Those curds! Wow!) and attentive/fast/friendly service. Accessible (ramp) and kid friendly. Affordable menu and free off-street parking. Cool vibes and atmosphere, with a modern/historical blend (the building was once a buggy factory). Great drinks at good prices. Carnivores love it, but there are many fantastic vegetarian and vegan options that I love. Gluten free options. One of my top three favorite restaurants ever. Highly recommend!

Although I haven't been to Monroe in some time, I always make a point to eat at Buggyworks when I am there. I'm going soon with friends, so I looked up the current menu and reviews. As a self-proclaimed cheese curd snob, I cannot recommend Buggyworks curds enough. They rival the #1 best Optimist (?) curd stand, that has hour-long lines sometimes during Cheese Days. THEY are THAT GREAT! Buggyworks curds are my #1 in the state at any time the Optimist stand isn't an option.

The food is always fresh and nicely presented. My favorite main dish is the cavitappi (which is a great noodle choice, as it holds onto lots of the delicious sauce). The mac & cheese, green beans and Fitzgibbons salad are also really fantastic. I wish there were even a couple more vegetarian options, but I always want to try more things when the dishes I try are this good.

The staff is welcoming and are genuinely nice people. The place is clean and the kitchen is immaculate and open (right at the center/side of the dining area). You can watch a behind-the-scenes of your food being prepared by the chefs, who seem to work as a team like food creation is a well-choreographed dance: especially fascinating to watch on a busy night.

The history nerd in me also loves the back story about their "Fitzgibbon's" building and the effort that went into researching, displaying and preserving that building history in the restaurant. The atmosphere is really cool and unique. [From what I recall] The Fitzgibbons building that houses Buggyworks was once a buggy (for horses) factory--thus the name, the original old time buggy on display and other buggy-related art, for example. Next to the most tables in the establishment are metal-etched art plaques of various pages from the old buggy factory's catalog (made from the original catalog located at the historical society, I think). There are also framed newspaper articles about a fire at the building 100 years ago, or something (I think some of the exposed brick and wood support beams might still show traces of black soot from that fire.) The owner seems to have gone to great care to preserve some of the history of place, which I find interesting and appreciate. I might have some details wrong, but wanted to add a little about the interesting decor and history, in addition to reviewing the great food. I will be taking friends from out of the area to Monroe to experience Buggyworks very soon. I rarely write reviews; this place deserves that effort though. Highly recommend! (Try the...

Very mid food and service. Interesting/fun atmosphere. Love the open industrial look of the place. Open kitchen is a little odd, adding harsh light and lots of noise to the otherwise quiet and cozy-lighted dining area.

The food offers and descriptions seem like it would be really good, but we found the food to be rather bland.

For appetizers, we got fries and the baked French onion soup. The soup was very salty rather than savory. The fries were indeed skin-on, but they were just generic frozen fries, not fresh cut or anything. For the price, I had assumed they would be fresh cut. We got the garlic aioli to dip the fries, and the garlic flavor was near absent.

I tried the #6 Burger, which came with caramelized onion and garlic aioli, among other toppings. Despite these toppings, I found it quite bland, and I don't think the patty itself was seasoned at all. The side of coleslaw was alright if you like sweeter coleslaws.

My partner ordered the sherry cavatappi, a dish which we make at home occasionally. We found it bland as well, with the sauce so thin that it slid right off the pasta. We will stick to making this ourselves.

Despite the bland food, it did seem that the ingredients were all fresh and of good to great quality. The burger bun was very good. We did not get dessert, but the offerings looked appealing. Drink options were limited to those of a typical bar, though we did not order alcohol on this visit.

We went on a Tuesday night. There were more empty tables than full when we arrived, and the wait to order was longer than reasonable. We were seated right away, but the rest took awhile. All in all, we were in the restaurant for about 2 hours, with the first 20 minutes waiting to order and the last 20 minutes of waiting just to pay the bill.

I'm new to the area, and I was excited to try this restaurant based on the online menu. We were quite disappointed by service and food. We may try again to see if it was an "off" night. If it is a repeat, we will likely not be back. I will update this review based on a second...

We had reservations for 4 ppl New Years eve at 7pm. ( Made a week in advance) We drove 30 minutes to dine here as we were told it is good. We arrived 10 minutes early. Waited 20 minutes to be seated(Our table was ready within 5 minutes of arriving but there were only 2 chairs. The hostess told us people without reservations(Walk ins) are using the 2 chairs that were missing but will get 2 as soon as possible. Finally got seated 25 minutes in( they found 2 chairs). Ordered cocktails. Were given menus (There were I believe 6 dinners listed as it was minimal menu for new years eve) Prime rib, steak, shrimp dinners. At this time we are 40-45 minutes in. Waitress comes back to finally take our order and now tells us they ran out of everything. Now wouldn't you think that for a new years eve "limited menu" they would order enough food to get through the night? Plus the fact I was told reservations are strongly encouraged. It was only 7pm (reservation time)and they were out of everything already. Why are reservations "strongly encouraged" if unexpected walk ins came and took all the chairs? This makes no sense. Wouldn't good business practices be "I am sorry but we will be accommodating our reservations first before seating walk ins"?. There was also a line of people at the door trying to come in and not a single announcement was made by any employee that they were out of food. As if that weren't enough, we got up to leave .... not one staff member apologized or offered to comp the $6.28 cocktail tab we acquired while waiting to order food they didn't even have. Happy New Year...