Penn Brewery — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

The beer and atmosphere are both great! A total win!

BUT the food.... Ooof! We ordered 2 appetizers: The hot soft pretzels and the Poutine. No complaints on the soft pretzels They were as expected. Of the 3 provided sauces 2 were good but the 3rd was a thicker cheese that had an odd “potted meat” and Curry taste. Neither of us liked it. Curry is an odd choice for a German restaurant. The Poutine was good - it was served in a large bowl with side plates. Sounds fine until you ponder how to get the cheesy, mushroom and gravy-laden (and slightly soft) fries out of the bowl and onto your side plate while respecting your fellow table-mates. Maybe a family or dating couple would just pick through them with their fingers or use their forks but it’s rude to serve yourself with your already “used” fork. No serving spoon was supplied.

We requested a spoon and were given an oversized catering service spoon (think cafeteria lady with mashed potatoes) because it was THE ONLY option in the building! Seriously, how are they serving people shared dishes without providing serving spoons?!? The server was a bit bewildered at our request for a serving spoon and suggested using our forks! One guest was sick and didn’t want to make the others sick as well. This shouldn’t have to be said but it had to be said. Armed with the 18” lunch lady spoon we enjoyed the dish.

Moving on the side we chose for our Giant fish sandwich was the German Potato Salad. A hot version of potato salad that should be served with boiled, sliced potatoes in a hot bacon and vinegar sauce. If you like German Potato Salad steer clear of this stuff. These were fried and reheated small cubes that were at-one-time crispy but now had become chewy and were coated Marzetti’s salad dressing (!!!) with some kind of hot non-German spice. It was honestly disgusting. Ruined fried potatoes in Marzetti’s Italian salad dressing. No, just -no.

The server was fun but seemed less than knowledgeable service.

Go for the beer and atmosphere but...

Worst Experience ever... (review of service... no food,- due to wait time) Failure on almost every level today. Showed up and there was 2 tables sat. Every other table was empty, waited for drinks. 15 minutes for 1st beer. Ordered another beer, waited about 25 minutes for that one. Now at an hour we are told kitchen was backed up...and had to wait to order our food... with 2 tables in the restaurant before us....and we had to wait to order food... After waiting again and was finally able to order food, waitress took the orders of what was now the full restaurant... which dis not help anything as now thw kitchen was slammed.. but actually slammed and backed up this time. After waiting even longer for our food and hitting the 2 1/2 hour mark we ask if our meals have even been started.. we were told our ticket was now 7th in line to be made. At this time we and 2 other tables decided we had to leave as we had show tickets and simply could not wait... server was doing her best however there is only so much she could do on her own. Not a single word was spoken to us from management to try to remediate or correct anything at all. The server was set up for failure and the only one trying or even visible that she even cared. Only time we even physically saw management was when they got 1 table water. And then never again, however no food was coming out. For anyone. This was by far the worst Experience any of us have ever had not even just at Penn Brewery but anywhere.. After canceling our order that was never even started we were able to go to a brewery that had a foodtruck out front and were able to be fully served in the amount of time it took Penn Brewery to get our first beers... Just a terrible / pathetic experience all around. If your kitchen cannot keep up with 2 tables in the restaurant, you should not continue to seating people until the restaurant is full and expecting people to be fine with waiting at least 3 hours or however long it wouldve taken to...

If I could give this a 0 star I would! We were there on Saturday for dinner before a show and I'm very glad we got there 3 hours before. Our waitress looked like she should work at a truck stop. We named her Methamphetamine Mary. She came to our table after about 5 mins of being seated. Now it was about 5:00 so not a busy time. She looked like and acted all coked up. She had nothing to write on, had to run and get reciept paper to take our order. Acted all rushed the whole time. We put our order in and after about 40 mins of sitting there, she came back over to make sure she wrote our order right cause she couldn't read her own writing. Even after that, when she brought the order, of course 2 out of the 5 orders were wrong. I didn't get potato pancakes that I ordered. After waiting that long I tole her just to forget them if she didn't put them in. My spatzel was cold and glumpy like it sat there for 30 mins before she brought it out. Then....after about 10 mins of us eating, she came out to me and said there were some leftover pierogis someone didn't want and wanted to know if I wanted them! Like seriously! I didn't even order pierogis and why would you think it's OK to give me someone's leftovers! Place is dirty, bathrooms all broke down and filthy. Save yourself time and agony and go somewhere else. This joint needs shut down and Meth Mary needs to go back to whatever hole she...