The Vault 1905 Sports Grill — Restaurant in Van Buren

I don’t usually post reviews. But this was a terrible experience. Food took over an hour to come out, service was slow, uncomfortable seating and the food was less than mediocre. Would not recommend this place, take your money elsewhere. Wish we did.

Editing my original post since Google, in all of it's infinite wisdom, does not allow replying back and also because who ever runs this fine establishment decided to get snippy.

"It's nearly impossible to have short wait times during a festival with 3k people in the street" Firstly, there was nowhere near 3000 people at the festival. Maybe 300, max. I know, I was there. Secondly, there was no expectation of a "short wait time"....there WAS an expectation of a reasonable wait time. If you know the festival is coming, necessary preparations should have been made ahead of time. This is a failure on your managements part, not my "unreasonable expectations".

"I personally find it unfortunate when people see the chaos and expect the impossible" Reasonable ticket time while being busy is impossible? Maybe you're in the wrong line of work.

"You're going to be let down at any venue with these expectations." Wrong. I've been to many establishments that worked well under pressure and was able to produce a great meal, with friendly service in a reasonable amount of time.

"Please visit on a regular day. We'd love to have you back and a chance at a real review." Calling someone's review "not real" is a good way for them to not come back. My review was real. That was the experience, it was terrible.

What I also didn't mention was our waitress was incredibly rude. Something also to take note...is if you look at all the previous reviews that are negative...they all basically echo what I'm saying. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, but maybe instead of replying back and giving snippy responses, you should take the criticism, learn from it, try to improve...

Arrived for lunch on Saturday before noon. The place is packed, but that's fine. No one is working the front desk and people are waiting so one guy starts signing himself in to the wait-list. A waitress shows up and makes a bad joke about if he's looking for a job, clearly not wanting him to sign himself in. The she walks off while there's still a long line waiting to sign in. Another lady in front of us waits about 10 minutes for the same waitress to come back and the waitress signs her in. My family and I are standing right behind her (unfortunately making it hard for traffic to come in and out, but that's how crowded it was) and the waitress turns around to walk off again. I had to loudly call for her attention (with a simple "excuse me") and ask her to sign us in before she walks off again. She was clearly upset but did sign us in. This shouldn't be our first exposure to this restaurant.

At this point I have no idea if the food is good, and I'm not worried about the crowds - those things happen. But when staff from your restaurant comes to the front, they need to acknowledge all those waiting just to be signed onto the wait-list, and they should be positive about it, instead of trying to ignore them and walk off and then getting upset when a customer gets their attention.

EDIT: We ate the food and it was quite good, especially in comparison to what you pay for it. They did a great job with the fried jalapenos, and the various sliders were pretty good too. We had the same waitress and she started off fairly rude and with a bad attitude (like our earlier interaction) but she became more friendly before we left. Nonetheless, I think there's no excuse for her bad attitude towards us and generally ignoring customers when she had the opportunity to help - being busy is not an adequate excuse for...

We moved to Alma over a year ago & have been exploring new eateries in the area. This was our first visit to The Vault. It was a late lunch (1:15pm) on a Monday for my hubby & I. We absolutely LOVED the decor, stained glass, original high tin ceilings & stone walls! Really beautiful! 😍

It was described on Google Maps as a "sports bar", but it was not overbearingly so. It has a few big TV screens, but they aren't loud. There is some sports & music memorabilia on the walls. The music was at a nice level where you could still have a conversation at normal volume. (It may have a louder crowd in the evenings & on nights when they have live music & on karaoke night). But for lunch, the atmosphere was PERFECT & not overly crowded.

So, now to the FOOD! OMG...🤯 let's just say if I was on Death Row, I'd request my "last meal" from this place! 😋 I ordered the sliders with fries. It comes with two sliders. They have a variety of types of sliders (flavors & meats) to choose from. I liked that they give you the option of paying an extra $2 to split your two sliders, so you can try more than one flavor. I chose a cheeseburger slider and a turkey & swiss slider. BOTH were delicious & the buns were so FRESH!

The homecut fries (huge serving) were awesome & I snagged a couple of my hubby's onion rings. They were nice & crispy (and not greasy at all) and flavorful! Hubby had the bacon cheeseburger and it was equally delicious and was of decent size.

Our server, Aaron, gave us superb service & gave us a bit of history about the business & the renovation process that resulted in such an inviting space. We didn't wait long for the food & he offered us refill drinks for the road.

We'll definitely be back again (& again)! Can't wait to try other dishes there. Give The Vault a try, you won't be...