My family and I visited Obed & Isaac's for our first time this past Saturday, 12/07/24. It was a surprise trip that had been planned for months and we were so excited to visit and dine in your beautiful church setting!

We were aware that the place is pretty popular, so we joined the online waitlist on the drive over from Bloomington at 4:24 p.m. and were told the reservation queue would put us at a 50-75 minute wait. No problem for us! We had loads of time! We, like many others in the area, were visiting for the concert in town that evening.

When we arrived, we found close parking despite the busyness and headed indoors where it was crammed chock full of people standing shoulder to shoulder waiting to get a table. For context, our party was a 4-top, so largely a very orthodox table request.

We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited - patiently understanding the hostesses were doing everything they could to deal with the demand. My 1-star review is not for their service (for which they cannot really be blamed), but for the situation that could've been entirely avoided with a simple "reservation".

It is exceptionally common to be able to reserve a table, especially during peak hours like a Saturday night, or in larger cities to put a time limit on tables ahead of time to turn them over regularly. Our 50 minute wait turned into a 100 minute wait, and during that time I saw guests turned away in droves for the "2 hour+ wait time".

We patiently waited in good faith having heard such glowing reviews, with my mother having actually been turned away once before (again due to the extreme busyness), and were unfortunately very rushed by the time we were sat.

I understand having less tables and spacing things out adds to the ambience/exclusivity/atmosphere and have no qualms with the usage of space in the church largely. Additionally, I have worked as a server in the restaurant industry, and I sincerely knew the staff was doing what it could to meet demand. But from a top-down approach to seating, our experience was ruined due to the simple insistence on "First-Come-First-Serve". There are too many easy solutions at your discretion to this in 2024 for a place as high quality and in as busy a district as Obed & Isaac's to not have this solved during peak hours.

When we were seated, the booth was exceptionally comfortable, and dampened sound very nicely. The sound design of churches will always wow me with their exceptionally tall ceilings. Unfortunately though, the beautiful Christmas ambience was ruined with some rock and roll music - perfect for the brewery lunch hour, but not in tune with the more intimate and perhaps slightly more formal dinner hour. Thought maybe some classic Christmas music would have been less obtrusive here.

Because the 100 minute wait put us in a bit of a rush, we ordered drinks and appetizers as soon as we met our server. We had all looked at the menu and been ready to order, but knew we wouldn't have enough time to scarf down food and drive across the street to the Civic Center by 7:00.

The food we did order was divine - time constraints again constricted us to no alcohol and just apps - the Parmesean Artichoke Dip, Buffalo Chicken Dip, and Pretzel were delicious - not a crumb left on our hungry table! My water tasted like well water (kinda gross) but everyone else's drinks were just fine.

I'm not sure if I would return. On the one hand, the food and ambience were lovely for the most part, but having been turned away for both lunch and dinner with no option to reserve, it's hard to recommend this beautiful establishment in good faith.

Thanks for reading! I wish you all a Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas!