Independent Brewing Company — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

For starters, their name is misleading as they don’t brew any beer at all. Secondly, as far as I know this is the only place in Pgh pretentious enough to automatically include 20% gratuity on your check. In my opinion one tips for good service and a pleasant experience and the only person that should and can be the judge of that is obviously the customer. Legal or not, you as a customer shouldn’t put up with such ridiculous practices.. My wife and her friend were told that the only size beer served was 16oz, which is incorrect as my wife found out once she approached the bar herself. The food was ok, but small portions for the amount of money they charge. I usually overtip when I’ve had a good time, but because this wasn’t the greatest experience, I asked the waitress for the bill, not included the 20% gratuity and explained her I’d decide how much tip I’d leave. When she told me she couldn’t do that, the manager came over telling me that what they were doing with the tip was perfectly legal and that they had 3 lawyers..? I guess that being so pretentious gets them in trouble more often and therefore I do understand their need for 3 lawyers:-) Then the owner joined the conversation, calling me his friend, to which I responded I’m his customer and not his friend and that I wasn’t at all happy about the whole experience. He didn’t get the point at all and started arguing with us.. really? Long story short, please do not support this or any establishment that thinks of themselves that they automatically deserve a 20% gratuity. It’s in your interest as a business to provide your customers with a good product and a pleasant experience and if you do a good job at that, you’ll automatically get more than a 20% tip on your services. I guess they’re not really sure whether they’re delivering a good product and/or delivering a good service. Otherwise they wouldn’t be including automatically a 20% gratuity. My recommendation, spend your dollars elsewhere where people are genuinely concerned about the experience their customers have and where the servers go above and beyond to achieve that, and don’t support pretentious businesses like Independent...

Delicious food, helpful and knowledgeable staff, pricey but not overpriced, quaint.

With a selection of records they have at the back of the bar area the staff sorts through these to make their music choices. There is a good amount of bar seating including some little tables to sit at and a nook near the front window.

There is also a dining area that apparently you only get sat at if you are gonna order an entree so we didn't sit there. It's on a lower level down a couple of stairs.

The reason it got 5 stars in my opinion is Cecil, the bar tender. He knew when to check on you and when not to. He helped me navigate differing beer tastes and is not afraid to give you some samples to try. He also, I think without either of us asking, put out water glasses for us and was diligent at refilling them.

Finally I need to mention the appetizers we got. The breadsticks are crunchy and tasted kind of like goldfish with a cheese dip and some flavorful greens brightening it up. The other one was brussel sprouts which was so tasty and flavorful at first and sweet as it was soaking in a sweetened water st the bottom.

I would def recommend checking it out just prepare to pay more, but as they say you get what...

You know this would’ve been a five star review if not for one thing. Let me start at the beginning. We got there, seated outside and had a beer or two. The beer list is interesting, some different things that we had not had before. Pretty good. The food was better than many. The service was acceptable. The thing that really really put me off was at the end when the check came. Let me preface this by saying I tip pretty generously always! As long as the server is reasonably accommodating, They don’t even have to be great, just reasonable. When the server brought the check, he pointed out a 20% tip is already calculated into the total, as a separated charge a Ready included. I was stunned. I paid without complaint, like most I’m sure. But the more I thought about it afterwards, it’s very audacious To put a customer in a position of arguing about a gratuity, in the case where it was not deserved, with the very server who provided substandard service. All in all it’s just a very tacky practice. That along well stop me from going back. Such a shame, because the place does have a lot of potential. And we...