Christina Keffer
Google
I lived in the North Side from 2007-2014 and the Monterey Pub was my favorite place ever. We used to go there after long days of renovation and enjoy really awesomely poured Guinness and delicious food, served on plates.
Well, they still know how to pull a pint, but that's about it, as I found when I returned yesterday for the first time in over a year.
Everything else, the food quality, the service, even the ambiance was a disappointment.
We were greeted by the bartender who immediately got us drinks which was great.
Then proceeded to wait 20 minutes for our waitress to stop by, though the place was empty. She was brusque and dismissive from the get-go, handling my friends special request for oil and vinegar dressing for her salad with actual disdain, as though it was an outlandish request.
I ordered fish and chips and it came out with curly fries which was not on the menu, and the fish was almost underdone.
My friend's salad came out in a round bottom bowl that was impossible to eat from without twisting an turning. Her salmon was obviously undercooked, actually raw on the inside, pink and wet.
When asked to send it back, the waitress was quite rude about it. My friend asked for a plate, and when given a bread-size plate, asked if there was just a regular one she could pour the salad onto so she didn't have to hold onto the round bottom bowl while eating.
She was informed, sarcastically, that that was the biggest plate there was because "We're a pub," as though expecting normal sized place settings from a pub was crazy.
They'd replaced the lamps by the booths too and they're so bright they hurt your eyes, as they are basically at eye level.