Hofbräuhaus - Newport — Restaurant in Newport

Let me start by saying that most of our food was very good...our group had the schnitzel, reuben sandwich and various appetizers.

However, I am so sorry to be writing this negative review about one of my favorite restaurants in restaurants in Northern Kentucky. We had a group of eight and were seated in the biergarten. We were very happy about having a good night and loved sitting in the great atmosphere of the biergarten.

When our server arrived, it was apparent that she was not in a very good mood. We were trying to joke around with her, but she couldn't even smile.

Things only went downhill from there. Our appetizers did not come first, they were served after the meal and the server disappeared after she took our order. We had to get French's mustard from the table next to us, seriously FRENCH'S mustard at an authentic German restaurant???

When I finally flagged down the server and asked if there was German mustard, she said yes, and asked did I want some. I said yes. The there was no mention of cost. It was a sweet mustard and I really wanted a spicy German mustard with my bratwurst. I didn't use it.

When the bill came, I noticed that I was charged $2 for the mustard. I felt I should have been told about the charge and at that point, our group was a little perturbed with the poor service.

I asked for the manager who proceeded to tell me that the mustard was imported and that was the reason for the charge. I would accept that if I had been told about it. The manager's attitude was curt and he said that the menu has the cost of the mustard...I didn't have a menu any longer because the server had collected them. I have been a manager in food service and I know to listen to customers and their issues. I told the manager that I have been to German restaurants and they always have German mustard...not French's! He said that they have spicy mustard on the table...I told him that there was not any spicy mustard on our table. He didn't believe me, so I told him to look at our table. He followed me to the table and said..." oh, you don't have the condiment caddy...we'll, I'll take off the $2 charge this time, but next time, you should know that we have a spicy brown (Guilden's) mustard ." It was embarrassing to be talked down to like that.

I can promise you that after this treatment, it will be a very long time, if ever, for my return...there are too many great restaurants in the area!

I want you to know, that it really takes bad service for me to under tip. I am normally a 20 percent + tipper. We just had a great meal at e+o Kitchen and I tipped the server $100. She was great and deserved it. I can't remember ever not tipping. I did NOT tip the server tonight. Some of the responsibility for that was also due to the attitude of the manager on duty. I hope that this helps the owners in the staffing of what was, in the past, and in my opinion, a very good and unique restaurant in the area. I had gone to the restaurant in Munich and was impressed, in the past, that this restaurant was a close match! I am sorry to say that is not the case with what I witnessed this evening. I am of German heritage and I know good German food, you will need to look for better help. This is not...

I live in Columbus & each year, at least once, I travel down to Cincinnati for dinner & drinks in Newport & a Reds game. This Hofbräuhaus has always been the first place I go to before heading to the Beer Cellar on the river, then taking the ferry over to the stadium. On 9/23/23 I brought my son & my girlfriend for her first trip down for a game & experience in Newport. We were all very excited for this trip until we tried to get drinks & pretzels at the outside bar. We had over 1.5 hours before game time, so we should have had plenty of time to get a couple drinks & some pretzels, but it took the bartender over 7-8 minutes to acknowledge & get us drinks. I told him we wanted to order food & he said he'd be back in a minute to take our order. We waited & waited & waited, even trying to get his & the other bartender's attention while we watched them take drink & food orders from numerous people coming up to the bar after us. After we started seeing food come out to people who ordered drinks & food after we ordered drinks, we decided to tab out & get food elsewhere.

We went to the game, then went to Hooters to get wings, but had troubles getting service there, (another review) so we checked the Hofbräuhaus website for hours. The website reads the kitchen closes at 10:00 on weekends but pretzels are served until 10:30, so we decided to take the 10 minute walk back there in hopes of better service this time around. When we got there at 10:07, the outside bar was closed, so we went inside. There were 7-8 customers sitting at the bar, but no bartenders were in sight. I walked around to the other side of the bar but still could see no bartenders, only a couple cooks in the kitchen. We Sat down to wait for a bartender & finally a guy showed up behind the bar at 10:16. I told him we wanted drinks, but really wanted to get a pretzel order in since we weren't able to do so earlier. He didn't hesitate to tell me the kitchen was closed. I told him the website reads they serve pretzels until 10:30, but he rudely told me again that the kitchen was closed. At this point I had reached my breaking point. I slammed the chair into the foot rail, then he immediately motioned for a couple security guards to escort me out of the place.

The whole experience at this Hofbräuhaus was so disappointing to me because for almost 20 years I had gone there as part of my trip & this was my girlfriend's first visit. I'm a bartender at a restaurant/music venue, so I know the value of providing every customer with a good experience every time they choose my bar as a destination, especially when there are so many other places to go. Unfortunately, after this experience I'll never return to this location. It has permanently tarnished my memories of this annual trip...

My family recommended this place since I enjoy German food. I can say that it was like walking into any bier haus in Germany, The layout was spot on with what I would have expected. If you are a regular, y, next time.You can get your own stein for when you come in. YOu have a key, so you just unlock it and take it with you to the bar or a table. The first room is large enough, but they have a flowover room too. I didn’t get to see it, but there is also an outside area to enjoy.

The staff were wonderful and went the extra mile for us.

I got a lager (or 2) for our early dinner. After that, we got the Reuben Balls (corn beef and swiss cheese in a deep fried ball deepfried). They had a thousand island dressing to dip it in. It was a good pick to hold us over until the main food came out.

I got the Bavarian Jagerschnitzel while my mom got the Newport Fish Sandwich. The Haddock was twice the size of the bread 😱 She used half for the sandwich and the other half by itself. For my Jagerschitzel, I went out of my comfort zone as I don't like mushrooms. That actually didn’t bother me, but what did was the onion strings and potato salad. It was too heavily salted for my taste. The pork cutlet, bacon was great and the cabbage good but not sure about the heavy use of salt for the other items.

My mom had to have the Apfel Strudel which came with ice cream and a Raspberry sauce. That was a great end to the meal for us both. I got a shirt for myself as a souvenir, so the entire bill before tax was $96.00.

I would still recommend going here as it does have a wonderful German Bier Haus vibe. Looking back, I should have gone for the...