Bissell Brothers

Editing my review because the table service here is just so unnecessary and irritating. Hoping they see this... Love BB beer, love the space, love the staff, but the table service just kills it. It used to be an awesome place to go in, grab a beer, pay, and repeat until you're ready to leave. The table service turns it into what was a predictable visit to who-knows-how-long-this-will-take. We live within walking distance and went from coming at least once per week for a quick beer to wayyy less frequently because there's no longer an option for quick beers, and table service for a beer or two is silly. On top of that, food service is no longer as fresh and is regularly cold once it's delivered, which is especially bad if you sit in the Garden and your food comes from the old kitchen. The most egregious example was this past weekend. We sat in the Garden and ordered the fondue. It was delivered stone cold. Fondue kinda has to be melted, ya know, or it's just a block of cheese. This is a problem that wouldn't have happened if BB still used the buzzer and patrons still retrieved their own orders. Or at least if it did happen it would've been my own fault, which I'm much more ok with. Long story short, if we want to go to BB now, we have to consider the following 3 things: 1 - How much time we have since there are so many unnecessary delays in service now, from waiting for the hostess to seat us, waiting for the server to come to order, waiting for drinks, food, etc, and then waiting for the tab. Not worth it if we only want a few beers or have dinner reservations or a show later. 2 - What day/time is it? Will there be annoying and rowdy kids running around? When we're able to seat ourselves, we could avoid the families that bring their kids and let them run around unsupervised, of which their are many. With table service it's out of our control. I'm aware the Garden is adults-only, but that introduces concern #3... 3 - Which food items to order, particularly if we're in the Garden, because if it comes from the other kitchen it will almost surely sit there quite a while and be served cold. No more ordering burgers, wings, anything hot, or anything with a sauce, aka 90% of the menu. That basically leaves salads and charcuterie that aren't adversely affected by the new table service. And I see the responses here and see that table service appears to be 'optional', but when you walk in and see a sign that says "Please wait to be seated", that doesn't feel optional to me. We did once walk by and order a beer and food at the counter, and when the food was ready the poor guy wandered all around trying to find us because buzzers are no longer used. Bottom line - This place was such an easy 5-star review previously. I have no idea why they changed their winning formula for the worse but now it's just a hassle. 🤷‍♂️ I'll be thrilled if they revert back and I can raise this back up. In the meantime this is a lack-of-understanding-their-customer-base-folly as big as "New Coke" and when Burger King changed their fries.