Wooden City Spokane — Restaurant in Spokane

Oh Spokane.....

Let's start with the initial impressions:

Had reservations for 2 at 8:30PM on a Friday night. Arrived promptly and had to wait 5 minutes for the table to be ready. No problem.

We are taken to our tiny table in the middle of the dining room with a single candle. No table cloth, no place setting, not even a rolled napkin with silverware. OK.

Server arrives fairly promptly and takes our drink orders. We begin to browse the menu while debating between the rigatoni, the chicken schnitzel, or the pork chop.

The drink arrive after 15 minutes. Not terrible, not good.

The drinks: $15 each. Ordered an Old Fashioned (had Old Forester). I should have not ordered that as that is horrific bourbon, my mistake. My wife ordered a "Bees Knees" (I believe some sort of gin cocktail). Extremely tiny.

The food: The server announced they were out of the pork chop and some other dish that eludes me. None the less that was annoying as running out of popular dishes on a Friday night is a bit ridiculous (and I was told by friends that the pork chop was the dish to order, apparently planning in the kitchen was not happening that night).

We ordered the blistered pepper and cheese appetizer, the "Fancy Burger" and the chicken schnitzel.

The appetizer: Very tasty (the filling that is). The pepper itself was charred but not really cooked. Basically a raw pepper. Lazy preparation.

Strike one: The waitress did NOT ask how we wanted the burger cooked. For $18 I would expect not only for the burger to be exceptional (it was good, not great) one would expect to be asked how they wanted it cooked (even Red Robin asks how you want your burger done).

Strike two: The chicken schnitzel. Well on the positive note: It was big. That's about it. It was dry, flavorless, and came with a horrific bed of coleslaw looking mess and a slice of lemon tossed on top. Salt and pepper were desperately needed (and not on the table or I would have used it). Spices of ANY sort were desperately needed. A better cut of chicken or less fry time would have been great as well since I went through 3 glasses of water to choke the flavorless smashed mess they called schnitzel down.

Strike three: Went to the men's room. Flooded floor from the urinal. Classy. Didn't look like it just happened either as the rest of the bathroom was not exactly spotless.

Dessert menu was presented: Mostly digestifs and three boring dessert choices (I think some kind of apple crumble and the other two already forgettable). We passed.

Overall the meal was $135.00 for all of this.

A couple suggestions for anyone reading this:

First, Spokane is not exactly known for high end cuisine. The majority of "new" restaurants tend to cater to a young crowd that includes close tables and loud echo dining rooms (and the always present annoying trendy music blaring). Lots of fun to spend $100-$200 for a meal to NOT be able to hear your partner without yelling. Wooden City was 100% this situation.

Sound absorption panels: Buy them. Your customers want to talk not yell.

The food: Time for a house cleaning. The food was flavorless, poorly prepared, and overall overpriced (very happy I passed on the $50 surf and turf special that night...my jaw thanks me).

Drinks: Either improve the cocktails (and size) or lower the price. This isn't a Vegas bar.

Overall: Bathroom really said a lot about the overall pride taken by the management. No excuse.

Skip this one, you'll thank me (and so will your taste buds...

I really want to love this place and will definitely be going back to give it another chance, however, our first experience left us wanting for more.

When we arrived the hostess brought my husband and I to our table. We had our 4 month old daughter with us in her car seat. We were sat in the upper mezzanine which was great. However, the table only had two chairs and there was no option given to us for our daughter. Was she just supposed to sit under the table on the floor? When we asked for a highchair they brought us one but it wasn’t the kind that could flip over and hold a car seat due to the way the back of the chair is higher than the front. We grabbed a chair from an empty table and used it for her car seat.

When our server came to greet us the first thing he said was that we couldn’t use that chair because it was needed for other guests. Again, no other option was given to us. The hostess then came back and told us the same thing, that we couldn’t use that chair and asked if she could bring us anything else. I said, “another chair”. She brought a different type of chair which I sat in so we could use the chair with arms for the car seat.

The food was delicious and I highly recommend their happy hour peel and eat shrimp. They prepared it with Cajun spices and cut the shell just so, to where you didn’t need to work hard for your bite. Thank you! My husband and I split the cesar salad and I loved the lighter style dressing, the fresh croutons were just the right amount of chewy and crunchy and the abundant amount of freshly grated Parmesan cheese was on point! My husband ordered the sausage and mushroom pizza and I ordered the lamb bolognese. The pizza was great, however my pasta never showed up. At first, I thought it was just how our server coursed out our meal but then he came and asked us if we wanted dessert. When I asked about my pasta it was very clear that he had forgotten to enter it but said that he would check with the kitchen. When he returned he told us that the kitchen had sent it to another table. As a member of the hospitality industry, it is in bad taste, in my opinion, to throw your teammates under the bus. Whether or not the food went to the wrong table or was never entered into the order, I would rather be presented with a solution rather than an excuse. When the bill was brought to us, our server told me that he went ahead and took care of the pasta for us and I was a little confused as I wasn’t expecting to pay for a dish I never received.

The wine list was a pleasant surprise and offered and good variety of domestic and international options and the atmosphere makes you feel like you are in a metropolitan setting.

Overall, I would say that this restaurant has a ton of promise and maybe we just caught it on an off night. I look forward to going back and hopefully having a...

Been wanting try try Wooden City for a while and I'm glad that I did. It's a beautiful restaurant, the blue tile pizza oven steals the show. We started out with cocktails, I have the Oaxaca and my friend had a Tom Collins. Both were very tasty. We decided to order an app, a pizza, and and entree and we split everything.

First the blistered hungarian wax peppers... Wow. This dish was so good. The cheese filling was savory, the peppers were beautifully charred. This was probably my favorite dish of the night.

The pepperoni pizza was also very good. The crust was light and airy and had some nice leopard spots. But I have to say the addition of honey to the pizza doesn't contribute anything. I barely noticed it was there and with all of the other flavors it seems like a wasted ingredient that could be used elsewhere. Other than that it was great.

My biggest complaint is about the bolognese, it's a little "medigan". First the sauce. Although many places in America serve bolognese with heavy tomato sauce this is not what real bolognese is like, and I guess I expected something a bit more traditional from a restaurant of this quality. Also the ground lamb was in large chunks, like a broken meatball. Don't get me wrong, it tastes good and the pasta had a nice texture. But it was like eating lamb meatballs and red sauce, not exactly what I think of when I eat bolognese.

Lastly, the chocolate custard. This was by far my least favorite dish I had. From the flavor to the presentation I can't say I was impressed. Given what this place is capable of I think someone needs to revisit the dessert menu and improve on it.

But that being said Wooden City is without a doubt one of the best restaurants in Spokane and if you haven't gone I...