Appalachian Brewing Company Gateway

Reviews 3

DA

Dallas Kinard

I have a love/hate relationship with this place. OVERALL I love this place. Ill start with the positives: - EXCELLENT food. The wings are amazing and so are the sandwiches/burgers. Seriously tasty food. - Hands down, the very best craft cola Ive ever had. I was told by our waiter that its made with nutmeg! I always order it with grenadine to make it "cherry cola". I cant recommend this soda enough - Prices are decent, but not great. - This is my favorite food in the area along with the cola. Now on to the bad Ill start by sharing my own personal experience I had here about 2 months ago. Are you bored and want to read a pretty good story? Read on. My family wanted to take me out for dinner for my birthday. I picked ABC because I love the food and never had a bad experience….until that night. When we arrived, there were about 4-5 hosts/hostesses at the door. None of them had any idea what they were doing. They fumbled and struggled to pick out a seat for us. Finally, our hostess looked up, and coldly said "How many?" We said four and then she says "Follow me." No emotion, just cold and almost annoyed. So as we follow the hostess, we see the direction shes taking us and none of us like it. She took us to the far back right of the building which had 2-3 long tables FULL of loud, drinking men that must have been there for an after work get-together. Before she seated us, my father kindly but sternly said to her "Im sorry but we are bringing my son here for his birthday dinner, can we please get a table in a quieter location? Id rather not have to sit next to a bunch of drunks while trying to enjoy a meal with my family." This offended the hostess and she quietly took us across the room to a booth that was in a better location.Here is where things get interesting. As we are seated, the hostess disappears so I start to go on a little rant about her thought process and why in the world she thought it was a good idea to seat us next to a very noisy group (little did I know, she was directly behind me getting our silverware). My wife then stops me and quietly lets me know that the waitress is "right there!" She heard every word of my rant and speedily placed our silverware down, didnt say one word to us and marched right to the kitchen. Feeling smaller than inch-high private eye, I wanted to leave and crawl into a dark hole away from society for a bit, but I digress, the situation gets even better as our night went on. After about 2-3 minutes, our waitress comes out and takes our drink order. She saves me for last and proceeds to have a bias against me the entire evening. She even went as far as not giving me a refill. Not even once. Did she forget about me? No. She proceeded to give everyone else a refill except for me. She asked my dad and my wife if they wanted a refill, and completely ignored me. I stayed quiet. I knew what was going on. She barely spoke to me, and when I attempted small-talk, she eventually said "Well Ill let you guys eat now." I kept my eye on the front where the cluster of hosts/hostesses were standing (yes, cluster – way too many teenagers standing there on their phones, making conversation and acting like they have nothing to do.) and noticed our hostess was bad-mouthing us. How do I know that? I read her lips and her body language. She was mouthing what I was complaining about earlier and ended it by saying to her friends "A-Hole!". I also noticed that every 5 minutes, one of the teenagers would glance over and stare at our table. They were so against me that night! If anyone from ABC is reading this, I noticed that night that most of the staff were very young and inexperienced. Perhaps hiring more professional people would help benefit you guys? Most of the time, our waitress/waiter is very friendly but take forever to acknowledge our table and take our drink order. I have to say, Courtney (I believe thats her name) has always been a pleasure. Very friendly girl. I hope this review is helpful to you. I will be back, I just wanted you to be aware of the situation.

CH

Chris Wolfgang

Id like to tell you that I had a great meal, but I cant. Why? Well, I arrived at around 7:50pm on a Friday night. They were busy, but not overly busy. There was a party of 3 people ahead of us. We were told the wait would be 25-30 minutes. Thats reasonable. The hostess took our name, we moved to the side and waited. Not too long later, the party in front of us was seated. You know the feeling..."Were next." or so we thought. We stood there waiting and waiting and waiting some more. There were at least 4 tables that were open and cleaned. Finally, we see the hostess gathering menus. We were ready to be seated, ...only to be completely ignored when she seated 2 other parties of 3 and 4, each who came in AFTER us. There were 4 in my party. I looked at the other members of my party and could not believe what had just happened. The hostess came back to the stand, walked away again (walking right past us both times) without ever looking at or acknowledging that we were standing there. That was it! We turned around and walked out. Never even got to look at the menu. CUSTOMER SERVICE stinks! Oh, one other thing, one of the male servers had long straggly hair with a long, unkempt beard. I dont mind if someone has a beard or long hair, but I certainly dont want that person serving my food or drinks. The man needed to have his hair pulled back and his beard covered. Truthfully, just the thought of him serving me food freaked me out. Im sure he was a very nice person, but I dont want your beard hair in my food. Simply disgusting.

JO

John A

Perhaps my experience as a restaurant manager may make me biased and overly critical, but here are my thoughts. First I will say ambiance,food, and price points are all awesome. Dare I even say amazing. Went on a Saturday night it wasnt overwhelmingly busy at 9pm. We were sat quickly, great so far. My problems stem from the service. My server was knowledgeable and friendly , but we waited on refills for at least 4 minutes which while sitting at a table watching the server chat with the other employees rolling silverware by the door seemed like an eternity. Post meal the server dropped the check off and we waited ten minutes for her to process the payment. No concern if we enjoyed our meals or experience. Just dropped the slip off and walked away. After we left we decided to come back for drinks after a little while and sat at the bar. The servers who seemed to be still on shift were sitting at the bar drinking beers and chatting. Took five minutes to find a bartender to take our order. My drink was made correctly but my guests was made incorrectly. Waited another 5 minutes to even see the bartender to get a refill and correct the incorrect drink. All while listening to the employees discuss how much money they made in tips and how they all were going out drinking tonight. They also asked for free drinks and discounts on mixed drinks because they only get "50% off on beer." No manager was present. Very inattentive staff. Would have been a 5 star review, but the staff destroyed what would have been an amazing time.