RockPit Brewing & Distilling — Restaurant in Orlando

My family and I visited RockPit Brewing on 12-15- 2023. The brewery itself has a pretty awesome vibe and the building itself is stunning inside and out. My wife got us a table while I grabbed us some BBQ (which was amazing by the way). The brewery was not that busy during our visit. I inquired about flights (to taste some local Florida beer) to one of the bartenders and she was eager to help which was great.

After our first flight was done I was standing in line waiting to return the empty flight I was third in line. There were approximately three bartenders behind the bar and approximately 7 patrons sitting at the bar with drinks. I stood in line for no more then ten minutes while ONE bartender attended to the two ladies infront of me. They were trying to find a drink they liked and the bartender was doing a really good job trying to find them one. The other two bartenders just stood their looking aloof. At one point a local (assuming) came up and they immediately greeted him and asked him his cup number and served him. Remind you I am still standing in line with the two ladies infront of me. Once the ladies infront of me get their drinks I finally approach the bar. I return the empty glasses and ask for another flight paper. The bartender tells me "we are not serving flights anymore because of the food truck event starting at 1800 and it will get too busy."

This information would of been really useful when I ordered our first flight because we really wanted to try other local beer. If I had this information I would of ordered two flights at that time. I've been to alot of breweries and at some of them had events going on. I never heard of a brewery not serving flights because it gets too "busy". Judging by the lackadaisical bartenders I can see how they would get overwhelmed with actually only one working.

My wife and I ordered a local beer and bought some merchandise because we really liked the brewery layout and emblem. Maybe if we are back in town again we will give it another shot. Overall they have a really good beer selection and both beer prices and merchandise are VERY affordable and not...

We came here once and they barely had any seating at all, so we sit at a table in an area that was “reserved” for a huge party to come in later where everyone else was sitting in the meantime. The party never showed and they still forced us to move with NO OTHER SEATING AVAILABLE INSIDE.

We had a table full of food, drinks, appetizers and they tried forcing us to move outside in the sun in 98 degree heat.

This was completely unacceptable so we asked for some common courtesy to have another table or area already ready for us inside in the AC and everyone else who was forced to get up and just stand there like idiots. There is no shade outside, there is no comfortable seating outside of this establishment.

This was so embarrassing and disrespectful

In my 13 years working in restaurants and bars, we would never even dare do this to customers and these guys here at Rockpit made it seem like it’s a regular occurrence.

The real kicker here is that huge party for trivia showed up about 2 hours past their reservation time so even after we were forced to move, nobody from that party showed up until an hour and half later

This created hostility and made us and a few others feel like we were unwelcome here. Most of the people who were forced to move ended up leaving and it was obvious they weren’t happy at all about this either.

Why would you treat your customers like this?

We’ve never gone back since and it was so beyond disappointing because this was one of our favorite breweries in the city. We’ve been regular customers at Cecil’s BBQ attached to here since 2009.

There’s much better ways to do these things.

One of the owners/managers were there too and they saw everything going on and they didn’t even acknowledge it.

We ended up sitting at the bar once we stood around for about 15 minutes with all our beer and food in hand and sat beside that owner/manager and he never once apologized or acknowledged us. It was so extremely awkward for both them and us. All they had to do was acknowledge us and do their due diligence.

We’ll probably never come back here and we’re still a bit sad about the...

This place has such a cool vibe and potential but, it really just isn't all that inviting.

We've been there twice just to make sure the first time wasn't an isolated incident and unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though it was.

The bartenders are pretty aloof. The first time it took us forever to get served, get refills, and check out. The greeting experience was better this time but, you feel mostly like an outcast as they spend time at the far end of the bar chatting with what I'm assuming are regulars.

I will say that there was a male bartender with a beard (didn't catch his name) that was great and attentive through our stay. The female bartender had blonde hair with braided dreads and she seemed like she couldn't wait for her shift to end.

We checked the website before going in because we wanted to get food. The website says Saturday nights until 10:30 pm but going in at 9:10pm we were told last call was in 20 minutes by the male bartender and 10 minutes by the female. 🤷‍♀️

There was a "service" dog at the bar that would get up and bark everytime someone passed. Another patron came in with a dog and the other dog had to be walked to the other side of the bar to not have issues with the other dog...which seems out of the ordinary for proper service dogs. While you don't expect a quiet atmosphere at a bar you also don't expect dogs barking constantly.

The beers are great and the atmosphere is cool as hell! I just wish that as an Orlando local I could feel welcomed here rather than some sort of weird outcast that's shunned to one side of the bar.

Maybe we will make our way back here eventually but, probably...