Thirsty Pagan Brewing — Restaurant in Superior

On July 21st, 2016 service in the bar room at 9pm, was the worst service I have ever had at any restaurant in my life. For the last ten years I have been going to The Thirst Pagan and the have always had great food, beer and service, until now. First when the waitress came by, we ordered a round of water, since it was a 90 degree day, and were given a nasty look, but she came back with 4 waters served in 10oz plastic dixie cups. Then we ordered our beer... She took two of the beer orders, but left to attend another table as our two friends were placing their beer orders. She eventually came back after we flagged her down to take the remaining two beer orders, but took off again before we could get a word in to order our food. She came back 5 minutes later to tell us they were out of one of the beers, so we place a different beer order, and ordered the mac and cheese pizza. She brought our beer out, only to tell us that they were also out of the ingredients to make that pizza. So we quickly ordered a different pizza before she left again. When ordering our 2nd rounds, two in our party utilized TTB's texting offer to get a beer for a nickel, to which the waitress literally threw her hands in the air and stormed off. We asked for growler fill, and were told that the bar would have to fill it... Even though they have always filled at the table for us in the past... So we it filled with the bartender. We finished the pizza, and 2nd round, and were brought the bill. It was a sloppily written paper pad and we had to ask her to help us understand what was on the bill... To which she responded "It's right, I can show you on the computer." So, one of us followed her to the "computer" which was just an unitemized calculator receipt printout that was just as helpful as the original bill.  We were too disgusted with the service at this point to even bother trying find a manager. We paid $65 cash on a $61.06 bill... A bad tip, for horrible service... But still a +6% tip on an after tax bill, regardless of the quality of service, as I know Wisconsin pays their service industry folks about $2/hr... To make note, we normally tipped 30-40% in the past here because we know the wage situation. We left, walked around back to the parking lot, to where the waitress followed us and threw our change in our car yelling, "Keep your change." I told her that was the tip, and she said, "No, I insist!".  If I could remember her name (blondish brown hair, fit, in her late 30's early 40's, average height) I would call and talk with a manager, but also want others to know the...

Dinner time....we were hungry, decided this place had pizza and reviews were good on that.

Thirsty Pagan has a fun atmosphere and it wasn't super busy on a Monday night , so we were seated right away. We ordered a salad and it was alright. I expected cubes of cheese, but it was a simple salad with lettuce and a few cherry tomatoes...kinda vinegary on the dressing. I should have asked for it to be brought over with the pizza, I like to make sandwiches with pizza slices.

Don't judge me.

They had black currant and raspberry sodas in bottles. Mine was brought as black currant and when I enquired as to whether they were out of raspberry the soda was quickly replaced. No muss no fuss.

Then the pizza arrived...we ordered the 10" chicken Alfredo. The delicious deep dish crust was covered with cheese and pretty much every ingredient was in the right proportion. The only thing that might make this pizza better is if they added artichoke hearts to it. There's grated cheese and hot pepper flakes containers on the table. I availed myself of both. Yummy yum yum! Yes, I pour that on the plate and flip the pizza down on it....and voilà !!

It was a most satisfying pizza dinner, highly recommend!!

Dessert was brownie with a side of vanille ice cream. They were out of strawberries shortcake.

The ice cream was pretty good, with a solid vanilla flavor. The bronie was a good portion size....the caramel sauce drizzled on top was exceedingly sweet. I'm not too partial to caramel sauce, as it skews the flavor of anything it touches, making it a sugar bomb. I ate around it. Should have asked to have the sauce on the side and would have preferred it not at all to sully the integrity of the dessert plate. Perhaps a contrasting acid flavor in the form of raspberries or blackberries might have balanced so much sweet. But. That's just my preference.

The live music though....that guy was SO good, when I came I thought it was the radio playing. He deserved a nice big tip. Which I left him. Funny guy, really talented!!

If I lived in Duluth or Superior, Thirsty Pagan would be on my regular rotation as best...

Recently spent a weekend in the Duluth-Superior area and this was one of our stops. Heard very good things about the pizza and it did not disappoint. We were in during happy hour so we also were able to take advantage of the $5 TPB bread deal and that was also quite delicious. The young lady who took care of us was very friendly, put up with our newbie questions and did a very nice job.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the visit was a bit of a disappointment. The beer situation here is average at best. If you want to get a flight you have two choices; a flight of their stock beers or a flight of their seasonal beers. No mixing, matching or choosing your own. It drives me nuts when places have pre-selected flights. Perhaps I don't care for all the style from your pre-selected flight so I want to mix and match and make something for my taste. Ended up trying the potato stout and the peppermint stout and both were poor showings. Really strange flavors, thin and just overall not good. I will say that the bock was a nice beer but my palette was already burnt out on the cruddy beers.

Don't force your patrons the take a flight that you think I want to have. This is America, let me choose what I would like to drink. I would have spent more money getting a couple flights instead of just buying one beer but if that's the business model you are shooting for then so be it. Next time I found myself in the area I likely would not come back. The pizza saved this from being a worse...