BrewDog New Albany — Restaurant in Plain Township

I kept seeing “Kids Eat Free” and we have three 5-year-olds so we decided to go. We went early (around 430pm) and there were only a couple of other tables and our server met us at the table. Before I sat down, she asked what we wanted to drink. We let the kids order lemonade, we ordered our drinks, and then she told us to order the kids food because she if we waited it would be too busy. Odd, but I know kids having to wait on food is no fun for anyone so I asked my husband to pass me a menu. She said, “We have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or chicken nuggets” in an impatient tone. I bypassed looking at the menu and ordered for the boys (easy-hamburger and chicken nuggets) but my daughter does not love meat so it was a little trickier. She agreed to try the cheeseburger and I ordered the Mexican Street Corn Dip as an appetizer and asked for a minute to look at the menu. We always bring paper and crayons for the kids to color and have worked really hard teaching them how to behave in a restaurant. The kids’ lemonades were carbonated and in glass bottles and no 'kids" cups. I wish I had known it was carbonated so I didn't have to spend a good amount of time "taking the fuzziness away" so they would drink it. Also, glass bottles for kids can be not awesome but we rolled with it. Another server brought out the kids' food and we were happy that they each came with fries and a salad and he took our food order. At this point, we still hadn’t received our appetizer so I asked him about it and also asked for some ranch dressing since the kid's salads didn’t have any on them. Our food came out shortly after and our server said she had no idea what happened with our appetizer and that it would be $1 for each side of ranch. I was a little surprised and told her that it was for the kids salads that came with their dinners and she just stared at me and said, “Yeah, $1 each” and walked away. When she brought them back and we still didn’t have the appetizer, my husband asked if she wouldn’t mind just cancelling it since we were halfway through our meals and we try to not have the kids sitting for too long afterwards because they do get antsy. She said ok and that she would just bring a dessert, on the house, instead. As we’re finishing, she brings a piece of cheesecake and the check-we noticed that we were charged for all of the kids meals and also the cost of the piece of cheesecake. When I asked her, in a not very pleasant tone she said, “You have to ask for the “kids eat free” deal and you didn’t ask. I will take the cheesecake off when I run your card.” Since I was done eating, I wanted to look at the menu again to see what else they had and noticed that mac and cheese is another option on the kids menu. My daughter LOVES mac and cheese and would have eaten so much better if she were given that option. From the time we got to our table, we were rushed and I felt like we were an inconvenience, and I had reached my limit so my mom and I took my daughter outside while the boys finished up eating the cheesecake and my husband waited to get his card back. Trying to be understanding, I ran through a bunch of scenarios in my mind from when I was a server…maybe she was just having a bad day, maybe she had just had an awful table, maybe they were out of mac and cheese…? But as we are walking by the kitchen on the way out, I hear them say, “mac and cheese was up” so that wasn’t it. Then outside walking to the car, I see her joking and laughing with another table. I understand that it's sometimes hard bouncing back after a bad table, but that is the nature of the job. Packing up and going out to dinner with kids can be overwhelming, stressful, and tough as it is, but usually it’s worth it to get out and enjoy some good food and drinks that you don’t have to cook or clean up yourself. Yeah, this experience could have been worse, the food was ok, the restaurant was clean, but no one should have to leave a restaurant...

I’ve been to this location multiple times, and I feel like my experiences have been a pretty mixed bag. First the positive: I love that i can bring my dog to the patio. He loves it and is well behaved(also weighs 13 pounds) so I’ve never hesitated to bring him. My experiences here overall have been more on the positive side, last week’s visit wasn’t the best I’ve experienced though. I felt this was maybe an instance of food quality slipping during off-peak business hours. We made a last minute decision to come in Tuesday around 3:30 or so. Maybe it’s a bad time to come? The restaurant was virtually empty as was the patio. Of course we opted for the patio as we had our dog with us. Initial service was prompt but we were never offered refills on water(they used to bring a carafe with actual glasses, we got plastic cups with ice for water. It felt weird? You get plastic cups for water at places like Chipotle or Panera, not full service restaurants/patios. Maybe this is a weird thing to mention since we asked for water and were brought….water but I digress.) We got tacos for the taco Tuesday half off special-they were out of one variety-I completely understand product outages and that isn’t something I really particularly care about as it isn’t the server’s fault. I felt the chicken was really dry on the Korean bbq chicken taco for what I would like. Is it supposed to be that way? It wasn’t inedible, just not what I expected. I got two fried cauliflower tacos-I’ve had them before here and liked them. The cauliflower this time was either really really overdone, old, or made in a way that was inconsistent with previous visits. Menu says roasted-these looked and tasted deep fried, dark brown, almost hard pieces of cauliflower. They didn’t taste like what I’ve had before. Louisiana fries were another item I ordered that I’ve had before and liked-this food item also made me suspect all of our food possibly sat under a heat lamp for an amount of time before it was delivered to us by a food runner-the seasoning on top of the sriracha sauce had bled into the sauce and there was a crust beginning to form on the sauce drizzle. I don’t think that hot food being served to us was a priority on our last visit. Salad had no pecans that I could tell. Maybe they were out too? The greens were fresh, I liked the Elvis Vinaigrette. Server never came around to check and see how the food was for quite some time-I helped myself to ketchup from the server cart on the patio(warm ketchup from sitting in the sun for hours, yum!) by the time they did finally come back we were pretty much done and we cashed ourselves out through the scan to pay option on the table.

I think this last visit was an anomaly-we’ve been here before and had far far better food quality which is why I’m leaving four stars instead of lower. I’ve had 3 good visits and one kind of not in the same category visit. Things happen and places have off days. I will be back to try again because I do like the dog friendly patio, the food when it’s prepared correctly, and the fact that they have so many non alcoholic beers available to choose from. It’s a nice place to enjoy an afternoon or evening out with my...

• edited to add - I reached out to the location per the response I received on this Google review. The GM of the location Lydia F. responded to my email and wanted to learn about my experience. I gave her my phone number but she refuses to speak on the phone and insists on email communication. She stated she was concerned our dining experience was poor but also mentioned that I should have taken additional time at the restaurant and addressed it with the mgr. She also invited us back for “a round of drinks” and now has not returned any of my emails. **

Hello,

I am writing to you shortly after the conclusion of a VERY disappointing dinner experience at Brew Dog New Albany.

To start- we were two families totaling 7 people . We arrived a little before 6 and the hostess, who was very kind , put us on A 20 minute wait. No biggie ! We went to the bar and the adults grabbed drinks. This was all great.

We were sat at a table , very close to being under a LARGE piece of roof insulation that had dislodged from the ceiling.

Our kids went to go play pinball - where they fed quarters into a broken pinball machine.

Our server came over and promptly got a drink order.

Then it was ages before we saw her again. Once we did see her again we ordered . Again our food took AGES - and a couple of the meals didn’t come until we asked about them. The food was mediocre and expensive for quality .

Our kids ordered desserts … and we waited another 20 minutes before I got up and asked the bar tenders about it . The server came back and told us “the brownies were frozen solid like a rock and when they heated them up they burned and had to thaw us out another one.” At this point we just cancelled the desserts and asked to pay.

The server did remove the desserts from the check and give us the burned brownie.

At no point did our server remove a SINGLE dish or glass from our table through the entire 2 hours we sat there.

I don’t really even blame it all on the server - she appeared to be the only server working the entire floor on a Saturday night!

It was apparent by the lack of people in this establishment on a Saturday night that something is lacking.

To pay out +$100 bill (our portion of the group) for frozen food and horrid service is disappointing.

As I write this I may have OVER tipped for this horrid experience as I have read other reviews stating gratuity is included on 7 people or more - I was handed a machine to pay on and it was difficult to see what was being charged .

This venue is prime . You have space for a lot of people to dine and have a great time. I’m assuming the lack of people there on this Saturday night is indicative of the poor food quality and service long before our...