McMenamins The Old Hangout — Restaurant in Tacoma

I loved the atmosphere and the decor, the food was good but expensive. The service was bad enough to consider not coming back though. There's two entrances and if you come through the wrong one the signage at the door does not give good directions on where to go. It says to check in at Commerce street, however you just need to walk to the back corner on the other side of the bar to check in and be seated. We were seen by staff and completely ignored, and saw others coming in and seating themselves so we did the same. After a bit of staff walking past and continuing to ignore us, someone came by and took our order. Shortly after someone else told us we had to move for another party but did not explain their procedures. They just seemed annoyed and had an attitude about it as if we were supposed to know something that we didn't. After being re-seated elsewhere one of the servers who initially ignored us coming in finally came to serve us and again seemed annoyed and had an attitude when we let her know someone had already taken our order. All she said is she doesn't know what we ordered and the other server needs to help us and walked away. After being treated badly by the second and 3rd person and no one explaining their check in procedure despite being polite the entire time we ask our server who originally checked us in how their check in works and where it's located. She was the only one to explain or treat us like we weren't a nuisance, as well as acknowledge it's a common occurance and the directions are confusing. I understand customer service jobs are hard and stressful, but we were polite, understanding, and apologetic for our mistake. The rude behavior we received was completely unprofessional and unnecessary, I'm sure management knows many people make this mistake at this point so I'm not sure why...

Excellent atmosphere. Decor inside is like a more adult version of what rainforest cafe used to be, but with a more dark nautical island theme. When we walked in, we were wowed by the decorations, especially the indoor mini waterfall feature. The bar is at the center and has many spots to air. Behind the bar seating area several booths. We were seated quickly and easily. The menu consists of Oriental inspired foods and tiki drinks. (I say Oriental because 1) I'm Asian and I guess that's acceptable and 2) this place is decorated like the time when English explorers went around taking stuff from other places and calling Asia oriental for some reason.)

Food was was fresh and I was impressed by how the dressing on my Mai Thai salad tasted just like the dressing on a Vietnamese salad (goi) I'd have at my family parties, but $16 is too much, plus they ask for $6-7 to add chicken to it?? Husband got the banh mi sandwich, served with sweet potato fries. Very nontraditional banh mi. Looked like a soft hoagie roll with 2 slices of thick bacon, rather than chunks of pork belly like we expected after reading the menu, and topped with cole slaw. It was tasty enough to me but could be better and was rather expensive, like $20-$23 or something.

I enjoyed my drink, which was like a Manhattan, but my husband said his Painkiller tiki drink was weak. That drink is supposed to be really strong but he didn't taste or feel anything.

Despite that, the service was excellent and the atmosphere very fun. We had a great time and the food was good, don't get me wrong, but too expensive for what it was. I guess we're paying a little extra for...

Last night (Friday May 31) was my first time coming here. While the drinks and atmosphere here were amazing, and the bartenders were friendly and accommodating, I can’t help but have a bad taste in my mouth from the hostess at the front. We walked in and stood in front of her hostess station. She would not make eye contact with us at all or greet us as we stood there for quite a while, and instead waved over some people behind us and got them seated. She came back and we were still standing directly in front of the hostess booth and she completely ignored us still. Another patron came from somewhere else in the bar, cut in front of us, which the hostess absolutely saw happen, and rather than mediating it as a professional hostess should (I’m sorry sir these people were waiting first, etc) she greeted this person who literally blatantly cut in front of us and got them a table for 2 (which is how many we had in our party as well). The hostess comes back, stands around for a few minutes before FINALLY greeting us then tells us there’s no more available tables left. I understand that it was busy, but there is no way she didn’t see us waiting for at least 10-15 minutes. She ignored us completely like she wanted to avoid helping us and instead helped 2 other parties BEHIND us, one of which was the line cutter. Despite the wonderful drinks, bartenders, and atmosphere, I can’t help but feel like we were a bit discriminated against by this hostess. It was disappointing and after 1 drink we decided to go elsewhere, where we...