Barrio Brewing Co. - Deer Valley — Restaurant in Phoenix

I really wanted to like this place as I love the Tucson location, but our experience today was completely unacceptable. Father's Day is a BIG day for breweries, anyone can tell you that. So, I was shocked when it took over an hour to get our food. The restaurant wasn't even full, but clearly the kitchen and bar were both backed up. No reason given, just to expect a ten minute wait for a beer (at a brewery!), and much longer for food.

Matt, one of three managers on duty supposedly, thought his top priority was bussing tables (there was no wait). Rather than taking a few minutes to talk to each table and explain the delay he chose to hide behind a broom and let his staff, all new, take the brunt of customer complaints. And I must say that I have never seen so much patience from a restaurant crowd where it was obvious everyone had the same experience or worse than what we had. I commend everyone who suffered through this experience as they did so with minimal complaints.

I spoke with Matt and told him that I was very invested in the location succeeding because I like the Tucson location, and there's not much up in North Phoenix. He had no explanation for the delay, no plan for next steps, no idea of what to do or how to fix the issues, no apologies, nothing, despite claiming he's been in the industry for 30 years. * Stunned silence from me *

You know things are bad at any business when front line staff tell you that management won't do anything if you bring issues to their attention. Our waitress, Katie, bless her, was doing what she could. She was there since open and was clearly stressed out. To hear her say that her GM, who was in the kitchen, wouldn't be of any more assistance than Matt truly broke my heart. It's shameful to leave front line staff exposed like that while you cower in the back.

I truly hope that Matt can learn how to be a manager after 30 years. I further hope that Barrio take this review in the spirit intended, one of support. We won't be going back, obviously, and won't encourage others to go either, which is...

Planes, brews, and good food

Barrio Brewing is Arizona's oldest brewery, founded in 1991 in Tucson. They have their main taproom restaurant in Tucson, another at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport, and this month, they opened at the Deer Valley Airport in North Phoenix.

There's lots of indoor seating, two tvs behind the bar, and a tabletop shuffleboard. Our favorite part is that they kept the model planes that hung in the previous restaurant. It's nostalgic, and kids love them. Currently, you can't take alcohol outside up on the deck, but hopefully, they'll get that license. Most of the seating has great views of the runway through the large windows anyways.

I really enjoyed my Barrio bacon jam sliders with the upgrade to beer battered fries. Not that they needed it, but the sliders and fries were even better with the tasty buttermilk ranch. (If you're someone who judges by the ranch...this is a winner.) The kids' meals included an entree, side, and drink for only $7. They were good portions and my daughter was excited for "real" Mac and cheese that wasn't just kraft. Everything else was very reasonably priced, including the happy hour menu. Our bill for two adults and two kids was $72, including an appetizer, cocktail, and beer. That's a great price that's hard to come by when eating out nowadays. The food truly was fresh and very good, so the price was an added bonus. Our server Michael was also very friendly and attentive.

After your meal, be sure to head outside and up to the deck. There are plastic tables and chairs under shade to watch the planes come and go. Speakers overhead let you listen to the tower communicating with the pilots. With the flight school on property, there is plenty of activity, and the kids love seeing "pilots" walk around. We have some great memories here over the years between awaiting Santa by helicopter and also building airplanes as a homeschool lesson years ago. So I'm pretty excited to have a...

We really wanted to love this place as we are big fans of the Barrio in Tucson and used to go all the time when we lived there. There are quite a few kinks to workout though before this becomes a great restaurant. My wife and I ordered the fish sliders (with two add on sliders) and then ordered a mac & cheese for our son. We waited about 20 minutes and the server finally brought over the mac & cheese and said the sliders would be out shortly. We waited another 25 minutes, so 45 minutes total, and they brought the sliders out. They were incorrect as we ordered an additional 2 sliders as an add-on per the menu. Our server said the extra sliders would be right out and so we ate the first two and the extra sliders still did not come out. When it did come out, he only brought one slider and said the menu was incorrect that it says you add on two sliders when it should really be one, “just so you don’t feel like you’re getting ripped off” were the words he used. We thought that was weird and they should honor their own menu but ok. We figured they would at least take them off the bill. The second slider you could tell was rushed and wasn’t heated all the way through and the bun was cold.

At the end of it we ended up waiting 45 minutes for food which came out incorrectly and there was nothing done for our bill and no management ever came over to apologize for the long delay or the mixup of our food. You would at least expect they would take the sliders off but no, nothing. They really need better management here to train the servers on how to deal with missing food or kitchen mess up’s as it definitely ruins the experience especially when you are with a young child.

We would like to try it again in the future I will definitely wait a few months for them to work out all of the issues. On a positive note, the first round of sliders were very tasty and the drinks were...