Freedom Brothers Pizzeria & Alehouse Naperville — Restaurant in Naperville

Let’s start with the positives: Freedom Brothers has an awesome atmosphere. The rock n’ roll vibes and decor are spot on. In addition, their beer and drink menu is expansive. You are guaranteed to find something that you will like. The outdoor patio area was great as well.

Now to the negatives (and the reason for the two star review). After being seated we waited for 20 minutes without a single server checking in with us. During that time at least three different servers passed our table to wait on other patrons, but no one asked if we had been helped. I eventually went to the hostess to ask if someone could check in with our table. We waited another 5 minutes before a server appeared.

After putting in our food order my wife and I asked to try a sample of the draft of the day. I ended up ordering one while my wife said she wanted to look for something else. However, when our server dropped off my drink she never asked if my wife had made a decision. She just dropped the beer off and moved on.

The food was delivered by another runner, who actually did an awesome job asking if everything was to our liking, brought us a fresh round of water, extra napkins, etc. And he did it all with a smile and said hi to our kids. That dude was an all-star! I wish I could say the same about the serving staff.

Now to the pricing. My kids all ordered spaghetti off of the kids menu. However, we came to find out a drink was not included. Just the entree. Now for $8 a piece that is a little expensive to not offer the kids a juice, drink, etc. I’m not ordering a kid’s sized fountain drink for an extra $2, especially when you’re already charging $8 for just a bowl of spaghetti.

Likewise, our 12” pizza was good…but not good enough for the price point. I could’ve found a better, larger oven-fired pizza in the area. Little Pops in Naperville, for example, does an awesome job with their pizzas and offers more at similar price points.

Finally, the food itself. The pizza was pretty darn good. Great crust and good ingredients. It was delivered fresh out of the oven. That being said, there are other, similar pizzerias in the area that do just as good, if not better, when it comes to the quality of pizza.

So, in the final estimation, if you are in the Naperville area and want great pizza, good beer, and some solid rock n’ roll, then order from Little Pops, grab your favorite 6-pack from a local grocery store, and crank up the Spotify on your back porch. You’ll get a better experience at a fraction...

Detroit style pizza was okay. Atmosphere is....lively. Pretty loud, interesting decorations. I'd give more stars for all of that, but the service? I give a zero.

My husband and I decided to try the place as a new experience. We were seated at a tiny table for 2. Next to us was a group of adults with kids, maybe 10 in all. There was another group next to them with 6 or 7 people. Our server was also serving those tables.

While placing our order, we asked a question about a topping. The server didn't know the answer and said what she "thought", so we just ordered cheese. My husband ordered a Caesar salad. It wasn't on the menu, so there was no description and we didn't know that it cost $9.95. But, Caesar salad, right? We thought we knew what that would look like. It took forever to get and was very disappointing. First, the lettuce was served as leaves on a plate, not chopped in a bowl. On top of the maybe 4 leaves at most were anchovies. Sure, that's classic, but who expects that any more? And there was no description on the menu, so who knew? We would have asked them to hold those. When we brought that to the server's attention, she said, "Oh." and walked away!

It took quite a while for our pizza, and when our server was at the table next to us we tried to get her attention to ask about it, but she was only being attentive to that other table. She actually turned her back to me after I waved at her! We kept asking other servers for things like more water, extra napkins, to-go boxes, and our check. Eventually another server took over. Our server only waited on the other two tables. She never checked on us. She catered to the other tables and ignored us.

When we got our check, we saw that the server had added a 20% gratuity! Two people, two food items, bad service! My husband went to the host stand to ask about it (because she wasn't coming back to our table) and they reprinted the check without a gratuity. We are very happy to give 20% gratuities and even 30% for good service, but we won't be bullied into a good tip when we were ignored.

I wrote about my experience to management. I wanted to know if the 20% added gratuity was their policy and if that was stated anywhere. No response. Then I called to see if they got my email and left a message for the general manager. No response. It's been almost 2 months. I really wanted to try some of the other things on the menu, but after being ignored by the server and now management, why would we want to spend more...

So here's the deal... Is this a 5 star restaurant, no. What they do though is give you a 5-star experience within the concept they're going for. It's a brewery that serves bar food and pizza. The concept is fun. I'm a GenX'r and simply LOVE the concept. You're treated to live recordings of concerts from bands that I grew up Loving. Audioslave, STP, Green Day, etc... All the food is punnily (is that a word?) named after bands and such. Service is good. Bartenders are generally cool and put out a great vibe.

The pizza is really good. They've got some fun combinations and even have a taco pizza on Tuesday that is really really good. Alongside a great deal if you go with a group. 10 tacos and a taco pizza for $30. Trust me, it's a great value. As for their pizza, detroit style or neopolitan, both are great.

Every app I've tried so far (5 or 6) has been really good. My favorite so far is the Italian beef roll-up thing. It's REALLY good. Guilty indulgent pleasure for me. It's like an Italian beef sandwich sushi roll.

I've also had the Italian beef sandwich as a meal and it was surprisingly good as I'm kinda picky with Italian beef.

They've got a great selection of spirits and wine.

My wife loves a salad they have on the menu and all the apps we've tried as well. She's a pickier eater than I am and if she allowed herself to eat breads she'd be in love with this place. She says everything she's tried she loves as well.

We are both super disappointed we didn't give this place a try earlier (it's been at this location for a while now) especially since we're moving out of the area.

Anytime I'm around, Freedom Brothers will be a go-to stop for...