Bowstring Brewyard — Restaurant in Raleigh

UPDATE: The owner personally reached out & discussed this with me. He offered his cell phone number & a refund. Mistakes happen, but owning them & making them right goes a long way. I am modifying the service stars to 3 (from my original 1), & the overall to 3 (from my original 1).

We actually first went a week ago but didn’t get to eat that day. Their hours said they open at 11 & mentioned nothing else. We arrived right at 11, & they informed us the pizza truck does not open until 12 (even the sidewalk sign said “Open for lunch at 11”). We left & returned today. There was not a menu posted anywhere, & there was no signage telling us where to go. We went up to the pizza truck to order, & they directed us to the bar. Still no menu, & neither bartender greeted us; we had to speak to them to get service. They had a pizza slice advertising “$1 each” per topping. We are a family of six & told the lady we were ordering two pizzas. She pointed to the slice & said those were the toppings. Still no menu, no pricing, aside from the $1 next to the toppings. We were completely shocked when we received our receipt & saw that our three topping pizza was $29 ($3 per topping, $20 pizza), & our pepperoni one was $23. We ordered the four kids a drink each, & there were no lids - just cheap, small, plastic, disposable cups. I ordered a cocktail, we were given a number, we grabbed the drinks available (five), & headed to a table. One of the bartenders came out a few minutes later & told me I forgot my drink. Ummm, no, it wasn’t ready, & I assumed waitstaff would bring it since we had a number. Nope. It was my fault, & I was told so. No smile, no kindness, nothing. Our order was placed at 4:30 on the dot (time stamped on receipt), & we did not receive our two pizzas until 5:23 & 5:25. AND THE PLACE WAS NOT EVEN THAT BUSY! On top of all of that, we were charged 20% gratuity without any notice at the time, AND THERE IS NO SERVICE! You have to go to the bar for all ordering, including refills. One person brings your pizza (and doesn’t even bring the correct amount of plates, zero cutlery for pizzas not cut all the way through, etc.), & that is literally the only interaction with any staff. WHAT IS THE GRATUITY FOR?! There is zero service, aside from the one person who delivers your pizza. We paid $15 in gratuity for a person to drop our pizza off at our table. The pizza was delicious, but the complete lack of service was disappointing. Oh, & a member of their staff even came in & loudly announced that she was supposed to be working at that exact time but called in because she was hungover, kept drinking, & came in to drink more - super unprofessional, much like all of the staff we saw. The two pizza delivery folks sitting outside the truck were lying down, eating an apple, & texting without washing their hands before handling people’s plates & pizzas. They also could not be bothered to give pizza boxes for leftover pizza; as with everything else, that is self-serve, even though you get charged gratuity. 🙄 Plus, no one does a very thorough job cleaning, as there was dust piled on multiple surfaces we saw when we went in the actual building...

Go for the atmosphere.

There are fewer places that I would rather spend a sunny afternoon drinking a pint. This is a HUGE space, inside and out and it has a captivating energy. The colors inside are inviting reds and oranges that remind me of a circus and that childlike astonishment makes sense, because games are everywhere: from Golden Tee, and shuffle board to chess.

They are also having a lot of fun coming up with trendy cocktail ideas, like a peanut butter manhattan, well...I gotta try that. Unfortunately the problems start there.

$12-13 cocktails are not unordinary, but if I have three of them, especially if one is a manhattan, I should feel a buzz, not the case here. Maybe where I went wrong was not ordering a cocktail tower for myself. YES...Cocktail. Towers. I wasn't lying when I said this place is fun, but I think a 12 year old could finish a cocktail tower and drive home. The first drink that I had could definitely be served streetside during a 5k race.

There is nothing wrong with a light cocktail. I want to make that clear. Somedays I want to drink a light punch and play some games, however, if I am going to pay $13 for a manhattan or $12 for a punch, it needs to put some pep in my step.

The most glaring price gouge is definitely their chicken wings. I mean $18 for 12 wings may not be the most that I've ever paid for chicken wings, but it may be the most ripped off that I've felt only because these wings are so standard.

I should mention that the food served here (at least when I was there, not sure if the food trucks rotate or not) was Vic's Pizza, a staple of downtown with at least one other location in the area. Personally. I've always preferred that pasta at Vic's.

Vic's pizza, though big and cooked well, with a perfectly crunch crust and a flavorful sauce is a questionable investment with scarce toppings, light sauce and barely enough cheese to cover the pizza, the $3 toppings and $30 price tag is a chin scratcher.

At least it comes in a box that may not fit in your car, I guess. Wait is pizza box tetris another fun game this place provides free of charge? Either way, I'll be back and challenge that cocktail tower to a...

Skip it and go somewhere else. I won't be back.

Parking: Awful. Small lot where you have to park all sorts of wacky. No close parking that felt like a safe walk to the Brewyard. Zero parking info available on the website. We ended up parking in a surface lot about a 4-minute walk away. There was no sidewalk and we were more or less on the side of Wake Forest Road, walking to the venue.

Figuring out what is where (because there are multiple places to go with a parking lot in the middle): Awful. Just put up a couple of signs or put this info online!

The food: SLOW. Tastes fine. Nothing fancy. We did not have pizza. Sandwiches were adequate. Mozzarella sticks were standard fare. I wouldn't plan on eating here again. Waiting an hour for 6 lukewarm mozzarella sticks? Nah, bruh.

The beer: cold. Okay prices. Beer selection was a decent variety. For a place that calls themselves a "brewyard", I would've expected more options, however. The outdoor tent area where the music is had only two drafts: Coors Light (seriously!?!?) and some Wicked Weed IPA

Staff: the food runners were nice, friendly, and really hustling. The staff checking tickets for the paid concert under the tent was very uninformed. People had paid for vip and couldn't find a place to sit. Staff couldn't really clarify anything for those people (not me). Bartenders were friendly and efficient.

Sound quality for the concert under the tent: Awful. We couldn't even hear the opening act. Ended up leaving before the main attraction.

Concert info: seriously lacking. All of my paperwork/preshow info: tickets, email blast, social media...all of it...said 7 pm. Come to find out it wasn't scheduled to start until 8 pm, but nobody in the crowd seemed to know this. Complete waste of time and I wasn't about to pay another $11 for parking.

Total waste of time. Total waste of...