St Louis Tap Room

Today's adventure takes us to the wild, wonderful world of the "microbrewery&restaraunt"known to St Louisians as The Tap Room. (More on one of the "other" Micro/eateries later)

So, this group that I am in decides to have its new member night at the Schlafly Tap Room, for Dinner. (Menu) http://www.schlafly.com/taproom.menu.shtml

The place is decent size and is made from an old building on Locus street in downtown St Louis.

We meet up and about six of us are at the table when our server comes over. I shall call her Hilda, as in BROOM HILDA THE WITCH, since she a)never told us her name and b) was a complete witch to our party the entire night.

We sit and one of the people in my group asked what types of a certain style of beer they had (Note: I am not a beer aficionado, I just drink it) So, she is running through the list in a flat tone with no affect. At the end, I ask what type of Iced Tea they had, since I tend to have either Tea or Water when I am eating. She says is a dry, sarcastic voice, wihtout looking at me "Mango" and then immediately asks what everybody wanted to drink.

So, I order the tea, and while we are sitting, trying to decide what to eat, she comes back with drinks, and her warm charm causes her to say "Okay, now what are you guys wanting to eat?" I swear I've been treated better by policemen after getting pulled over for speeding.

I decide I would like the Pasta Premavera with grilled chicken. Others order and when she gets to one person, he asked for a cheeseburger. So, our friendly server says "what kind of cheese, American, swiss, cheddar, provelone, gouda or pepperjack?" The guy says "Hmmmmm, I think..." and before he can get out his statement, she says "CHEDDAR, You'll take cheddar" and moved along and asked the NEXT guy what he wanted.

So, the food comes and it is delicious, some of the best Pasta I have had in a while.
So, I notice after a few minutes that my Mango Tea (which was suprisingly good) is empty. Not, NEAR empty, but is now just a sad collection of Ice Cubes. It takes Hilda about another 12 minutes to drop by the table and ask if anybody needed anything. Now, I know I am sometimes a bit harsh when I dont feel I am getting the service that a SERVER should be hanging out, but I made an effort to say "Could I have some more tea?" in the nicest way I could. I didnt know a silent roll of the eyes was the new way of saying "Sure, sorry I let that run dry on you, I'll be right back with some tea". But apparently it is.

So, when the check FINALLY comes, we note a 17% automatic included gratuity on the bill. Now, I have no problem with a set amount if your table has a LARGE number of diners. However, for what ended up being nearly $20.00 everybody at our table was treated really shitty, had their drinks run out, and basically made all of us say "Damn, the food is good (except Becky who had the Pate') but the service SUCKS".


So, after dinner we went to the "other side" of the place to throw some darts. I didnt know how BAD a dart thrower I was until the two girls who had never (or so they claimed) thrown darts before were kicking my ass. Totally embarrassing. We had a good time and the night went without a hitch once we got away from Hilda.

So, in retrospect, the place is nice, the food was above average, but our service was pathetic and totally NOT worth the tip she received against our will.