Waterloo Ice House

Dine inside and still watch the kids play on the huge playground? Yes please! And this is the one place that I know my kids will eat everything they order, mini corn dogs & tater tots! Why didn’t someone put those on the menu years ago. Also has an after dark adult side that feels very homey and relaxed. Play washers and enjoy the perfectly prepared cocktails. Even has heaters in the winter, so you don’t freeze your buns off at the outdoor bar where the game is playing on a big screen!
And they even let the kids karaōke! Yes, I’m in!

It’s gone, gone, gone. We liked the breakfast and the morning bartender, but they always were short-​staffed. Sorry it didn’t work out but the mgmt team needed to get it together to operate in this neighborhood

Everything about this place pretty much sucks besides their Tuesday — Wednesday bartender, Nate. Owners/​management know more about having multiple wives than running an Austin based bar. And most the staff is really sleazy; I’m talking REALLY sleazy. If you like people watching, I rate this place over the airport or any Shoal Creek busstop.
The wings are good, the beer’s cold, and you can bring your dog. Again, any good I’ve mentioned of this establishment only occurs on Tuesday & Wednesday night. Other nights? Well, that’s at your own discretion… May peace be with you.

It’s ok — when it’s busy they need more bartenders — every time I go it takes so long to get a drink — now I understand that’s to be expected if the bar is busy but not to this extent– prices are good — atmosphere is nice– and food is alright.

We’re always looking for places with playgrounds for the little ones so Waterloo seemed like a natural fit. The only problem is that the last few times the food has been OK and the service is terribly slow. We’ve had this same service issue the past three times. We’re at the point where we don’t want to give this place any more chances. Also, the parking situation is less than ideal right in front of the restaurant. Until the service quality gets better, we won’t be going back.

We used to eat here 2 – 3 times a month with our kids who loved the outdoor play area. However we always struggled to find a decent menu item. Salads average — burgers below average. Fries are good. But I am not going to a place just for fries. Breakfast tends to be a good bet.
We decided to try it again.. Again below average food and poor service. It seems to top down. This place does not seem to care about customers. The bartenders seem to be nice. But besides that,.
My restaurant dollars are going elsewhere.

So I went here for a late breakfast 2 weeks ago, Saturday April 27^th. The waitress was extremely inexperienced, tried to joke around with her and even told her it was OK to laugh and not be so serious about taking our order. We got the food just fine, food ok, salsa for my taco a bit watery, but such is life.

Now for the bad part. It seems this location is franchised. And as someone else said below, this location gives other Waterloo’s a bad name. As an Austinite, I’ve been eating Waterloo Ice House food for many years. But this one… yeah, this location leaves me with such a bad taste in my mouth, I’m filing a complaint with corporate.
You see, I was overcharged on my credit card. Not by much, but still… it was wrong. Now I realize that sometimes mistakes happen. No.Big.Deal. Things like this happen all the time and they are corrected all the time. However, when I called to discuss on 4÷29÷13 at 9:30am that it appeared there was an error, «Bob» (who I found out later is the GM), was SO rude to me, he refused to speak with me until after «36 hours after» the transaction. Even after I had advised him that the transaction had been finalized (not pending thru my bank), he got huffy, telling me, «I’ve been doing this many years and sometimes the bank messes up.» Huh? He was such a prick, I simply complied and called the next day. Of course, he wasn’t there, but after speaking with several people over a week and a half, the error was STILL not corrected. When I spoke with «Bob» again, I advised him I had spoken with him before about this error and he immediately snapped back at me, «YOU DIDN’T SPEAK WITH ME, IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY ELSE!!». I advised him of the date and exact time we last spoke, and again, he refused to acknowledge there was even a problem, even after I advised him I have been documenting every single call!
Once again, I provide him the transaction information to fix the error and by this point, I’m almost ready to dispute the entire charge thru my bank leaving them with nothing.
The next day, and it STILL IS NOT CORRECTED! I called them once again, spoke with another manager who said she wasn’t trained to handle credit card corrections, but that she would get with «Bob» again regarding this mistake. I then advised her that «Bob» was a jackass. Funny that… she’d heard that before from other customers. Hmmm…
It took two weeks for my card to be corrected. Two… and that’s after me calling them 6 times. I will never be back. Ever.
** Note to Bob — you, sir, are a rude douche who’s behavior is going to ruin your location’s reputation and is pissing all over Austin’s Waterloo Ice House good name. You have NO business being in the service industry since you treat your customers like shit over something so minor and easily remedied. I shudder what it’s like to be employed by you. Corporate will be hearing from me soon. That you can count on. **

This place has changed a lot over a year.
The staff is filthy, dirty, even some of them missing teeth. Service is terribly slow as the place is understaffed. The floor and tables are dirty. Avoid this dump unless they change the staff and clean the place.

This is a disaster of a place; moreover, this place is a waste of space.
Went in for beer and dinner. I was pleased to see a large selection of tap beer. I ordered an Avery Ale listed on the Draft menu. The server told me that they were out. I then asked for the Brooklyn lager and they were out. Next, I asked for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and they were out of that too. Finally, I found out that they only had about three beers on tap out of the 20 listed at this so called ICE House! Jeez!
The food is not even worth getting into. It was awful. Some of the other customers were heavily intoxicated and kept staring at me. This is such a huge restaurant and it really needs to get its act together or close down.

If I could rate this 2.5 stars, I would.
I have been here probably 7 times.
In general, the wait staff is young and very inexperienced. If you have high expectations for service, I would not come here.
But this place isn’t about service, it is about TV’s (which are abundant in the bar area), a casual hangout, and bar food. I wouldn’t rate their food much higher than bar food. It is OK, but nothing special.
It is however, a good place to bring your kids, with a gated playscape in back that is a great distractions for the kids.
On my latest trip, we ordered from the kids menu and did not receive the dessert that was suppose to come with it (the young waitress thought that when we ordered the turkey meatloaf for our 18 month year old we wanted a full order — she was obviously not familiar with the kid menu).
As a side note, it amazes me that they would put their version of turkey meatloaf on the kids menu. it is the same as the regular turkey meatloaf, and full of spices, peppers, etc. Stuff that small children generally don’t like…
I feel like this restaurant really needs Gordan Ramsey or some other person like to come through and straighten out the food and the service.
there is potential here, but for the past 2 years that I have been coming here, it is largely unrealized.

The food here is just OK. The real reason I visit is their playscape. My son loves it and gets to play with lots of other kids while his mom and I can watch him and have a cold one.

Just had a playdate here with 2 other families on Sunday. Great atmosphere for kids and large group seating. This location has a huge playscape for young children and an arcade room for older kids. The staff is very nice and easy going, they did not mind half a dozen toddlers running around like in «Lord of the Flies».
Food is average but plenty, and service is prompt (our drinks and chips are constantly refilled). Most of the customers there are also in large groups with young children, so I would say this place is family friendly (at least on a Sunday early afternoon).
I had the fatty burger (forgot the actual name on the menu) and my wife had the grilled chicken sandwich; both items are not the greatest but not bad either (average but expected from an «icehouse»). We will definitely go back again for another playdate because our kids had A LOT of fun.
If you are looking for a place for playdates in southwest Austin, this is definitely a good choice.

We stopped in with a small group on a late weekday evening, after spotting the familiar sign on the way home from a trip to the Hill Country. Compared to the in-​town Waterloos, this place is absolutely cavernous, if somewhat devoid of décor. Think huge metal barn with concrete floors and lots of windows, surrounded by a covered patio, an outdoor patio with umbrella tables, and the ubiquitous family draw – a playscape out back.
On this particular evening, around 8pm, the crowd was sparse, and the multiple TVs were blasting a basketball game. Families gathered both inside and out, and a small crowd of relaxed locals gathered around the patio bar, watching the game. It was a friendly, peaceful, local-​feeling atmosphere. We chose the covered patio because the AC made the inside feel Arctic on a warm summer evening.
Our server was friendly and efficient, and the food was on the table quickly. We ordered simple fare: Philly sandwiches & soup, the grilled veggie sandwich, and salad. It was all hot & fresh. My tap Guinness and the iced drinks were cold, and our server whisked by several times to check on us and to refill them.
As far as I can tell, this Waterloo has the potential to be a great hangout for Bee Cavers & passing travelers, especially if you’re wanting to watch some sports or let the kids blow off some steam on the outdoor playscape.

Good food, stopped for breakfast and had the 3 egg Omelet (Ham & Cheese) and yum! it was huge and came with a side of hash browns and biscuits and gravy. The Biscuits and gravy was great and the biscuits were soft, fresh. The omelet was filling and full of flavor, the hash browns had a funny taste to them, didn’t really care for them with is a shame because they looked so good.
The service was so-​so. I say that because even though the server was polite, she was not very attentive which did become a problem when my drink ran out and it seemed a while before saw her again and even then had to get her attention.
It wasn’t an overwhelming experience but I did enjoy the food I will definitely return.
Here’s the breakdown…
Food — 4 stars
Service — 2 stars
Cleanliness — 5 stars
Value — 4 stars
Overall — 3.75 Stars

Awful service!
Pretty much every time I go there, there seems to be a shortage of staff. Our beers come 30 minutes after they are ordered. Queso came out luke warm. Water never refilled.
And she slapped on the 18% on out tap. Nice.

Can I give this place ZERO stars? Terrible food, horrible beer selection, inept servers. I can’t say one good thing about this place… well, until it goes out of business. I can’t believe people pay to eat here!
We were served zucchini with rotten skin, dried out «grilled chicken breast» and a tap beer with blue stuff in the beer head.
Just gross — will never return — don’t waste your money or time.

Darn it Icehouse, I was pulling for you! I had a bad experience a couple years ago at another location and never went back, but when my wife and I found ourselves early for an appointment nearby I decided it was time to try again. We were pretty indecisive for entrees so we ordered a couple appetizers, of which we were pretty excited about the Chicken Quesadillas. A little while later our order arrived mostly correct save for the quesadilla which was obviously a kids one. The waiter disappeared for a while so I just asked the bartender if this was right. she said no and called for him. He finally showed up and said he was sorry and took it away. Only to return to say «Yeah it was a mess up. Do you want this one or should I put in an order for the right one?»
First, you should know the answer to that already.
Second… This sucks. We have an appointment and don’t have time at this point to wait for the right one, plus there’s this «unease» in the air like we’re being annoying and bothersome despite the fact that it’s the middle of the day and we’re one of two or three tables. So to be «less annoying» we just said the kids quesadilla would be fine. We tried to eat it, pushed it away with disinterest, and asked for the check. I was fairly surprised to see the original nine dollar quesadilla on there. I called him back… «Dude, we need to delete this.»
At this point I’m pretty sure that the waiter is new. I can understand how it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the service industry, but there are some protocalls to follow when you screw up an order, one of which I feel is to NOT charge the customer for the thing that they DID NOT order. I was surprised when the check was amended to delete the item we did order and INCLUDE the item we DID NOT order. I understand some business owners would cry «But you started to eat it.!»
Irrelevant. It wasn’t what we wanted but it’s what we got and was an inconvenience. We were still charged for it. Epic customer service FAIL.
Now I know I’ve written some harsh reviews on here but I’m pretty easy going. We still paid. Still tipped. But I feel that since the money for that small item was so important that they HAD to charge for it then I’m not just paying for that item, I’m paying for this review. Would you pay 6 $ to have this review taken down Waterloo? Well it’s preventable, hold a basic service course for your wait staff and hosts and hostesses, I can tell you they have no idea. Remember, especially if you’re looking at this review with contempt, you are in the SERVICE business. You are not entitled to customers, you have to earn it. Look at the rest of the reviews on here. You’re in trouble. If you want to fix it then look at these complaints with openess and accept what you see. It’s an opportunity for excellence. It’s not hard to turn this around and really shine. Good luck.

The burgers here are substandard: the meat patty has a lot of filler and tastes pre-​cooked. The tater tots are okay, but I can easily get the same thing from a box in the frozen food aisle at HEB. The only reason I can see this place is busy is the brilliant idea of having a large outdoor playscape and indoor mini-​arcade where parents can enjoy a beer and a meal while their kids are occupied, as an alternative to the Bee Caves McDonalds across the street.

This is a great place if you have kids. That is the ONLY reason we go because they have a giant playground in back. We can sit and have a much needed drink while my crew is out playing. Everytime I go it seems many more parents have the same idea… but all the goodness ends there.
The food here is just simply put… AWFUL. Everything is bulk frozen stuff. The fried catfish came out and it smelled and tasted Very fishy… and Not in a good way… ewwwww. The soup my son got was separated and chunky… gross. The mashed potatoes my toddler had were even kind of icky. BUT my beer was VERY tasty… out of a bottle!!! Our service is usually very good… and the place is big and has a lot of seating.
We will still go here every once in a while but we would have loved to have had this on our frequent family restaurant list.

I would typically give Waterloo Icehouse two stars simply because I’ve had some rather inconsistent experiences there, but the Kobe beef burger is pretty solid and if you want an easy, non fussy experience it hits the mark .
However, their breakfast is on the money! You will find us here almost every Saturday morning for breakfast. The pancakes are huge and fluffy with a hint of coconut and one is perfect to be shared by two. Our favorite so far is the Hillcountry breakfast which consists of two eggs (we get them fried and they always come out perfectly), tasty golden brown shredded hash browns and your choice of breakfast meats, toast or biscuits. The Husband sometimes adds a side of their sausage gravy and says it’s pretty standard and good. The migas were perfectly scrambled and fresh and my friend loves their made to order breakfast tacos. It’s good old fashioned diner style breakfast and really satisfies especially after a Friday night on the town when your body is craving a dosage of animal fats.