The Joker

This place SUCKS, all the good reviews are friends of there’s, all the bad reviews are from people who are looking out for you.
«Stay away»
Go Cougs

I used to love this place, but within the past six months the service has gotten progressively worse. It seems like the bartenders are there primarily to socialize, not tend bar.
The past three times I’ve come here it has taken way too long to get any type of service, which wouldn’t be to bad except for the fact that I was just one of three customers. Unfortunately, the other two customers were friends with the bartender and they were engrossed in a conversation about drugs (FYI: They’re big fans of the local pot shop), boyfriends, customers, and a few other entertaining topics. I could’ve probably listened to it for another hour or two, but for that I would’ve needed another beer and the bartender was too busy chatting it up to serve it to me!
If the owners ever decide to train their staff focus to bit more on customer service I’d be willing to give it another shot.

I wish there were a negative star.
Sadly, this place suffers from multiple issues. First is the food. It’s not only mediocre bar food, it’s often inconsistent between inedible and just ok. How do you screw up frying frozen tater tots?
Maybe you aren’t going there for food, ok… their second issue is the service. It is slow and not personable. In other words, you are just another person to wait on. That’s all fine and dandy when they are really busy, but, if they are slow and you get a sense you are a nuisance to get a refill, then they have issues.
On one visit, my glass of water was cracked. I learned this by getting glass splinters on my hand. Ouch! The servers response «oh, did you want another glass». No, I’d actually like to call a lawyer, moron. Zero apology for serving me something that if ingested could kill me.
Avoid this place at all costs.

Love the joker! Always our go to place when we want a good night out at the bar for drinks and pool. Clean, positive environment.

I finally decided to try The Joker, since I pass by this place every time I go into and leave work and unfortunately, my curious mind led me to believe otherwise. It was a complete waste of my time and money. I went here for happy hour, which is 4 — 7PM everyday, and ordered the grande nachos which is $ 8.50 on happy hour. Not only did it take forever for me to get my food, but it was not worth even five bucks. The chips were stale, the chicken portion was half a chicken breast, at most, and bland, and there are so few toppings. It’s basically stale chips with a bunch of melted cheese. The waitress takes forever to come around the tables, too. I had to go up to the bar, to check out… which was the worst part because she charged me for full price nachos instead of at the happy hour price, and of course, I only realized this error as I was driving home. Such a waste of time and money. Don’t go here.

Been coming here for over a year now. The beer selection is big for a sports bar and changes periodically. The food isn’t stupendous, but they serve it late into the night, so, at midnight, it’s better than anything else in the area. The atmosphere is bright with plenty of TVs, pool tables, great smoking patio, and long tables for large groups. The place is definitely local-​heavy with its clientele, so expect loud, drunk white guys pounding on the bar and wooting for no reason on the busier nights, but for a sports dive bar, it’s clean and professional.

What it is — a great place to watch sports (especially the cougs), eat wings and drink beer. It is not a micro brew pub or an locally grown organic eatery. They have a bunch of styles of wings, I recommend trying them all along with the peanut butter burger.

Always a great time at the joker! Its a great place to go with friends and large groups and the girls are on top of things even when it get busy! Wing Wednesday is a winner for sure!

This place is ok… it is one of the busy places in Issaquah, but not my favorite the food is MEH at best.

Dive bar. Large outside are for smokers. Lots of regulars. Food is average. Pool tables and lots of tvs to watch sports.

And so, if you are looking to kick with 15 year old adolescent frat punks and the girls who like to throw up on their shoes… this is your spot. Jackpot!!! As an extra bonus, the bathrooms have running on the floor and no paper towels what so ever. Having battled our way through the crowd of making out, lipstick smeared want to do someones, we could not find a drink or actually a grown up at all. What happened to the 21 year old rule… Issaquah. Major FAIL. nuff said. not going back EVER.

Decent food. The hot wings are not hot. This place lacks customer service. The girls are pretty and they know it. Which is fine if you treat everyone equal. So if your not a group of guys or a guy sitting alone (i.e. Bigger tippers) you do not get any attention. My husband and I were underwhelmed. If the service was better we would be regulars as we live 1 mile away. The search continues for a good bar/​appt/​date night spot.

Nastiest place I’ve ever been to. Watched the back cook eat my food before it even came out. Then I ate a string that was in that same food. Will never be back and will let people know about my experience. Down hill service for sure. Sad to see that happen. Turned in to a dive bar. Doesn’t even deserve one star

If you are looking for good food, keep looking. The chicken wings are the worst I have ever had. The outside patio looks like it has not been pressure washed in years.

Definitely a local bar but nice if that’s what you’re looking for. Good prices, generally pretty good food, lots of tvs, fairly relaxed on non-​game days. Nothing fancy but I like that about it.

Great place to get an ice cold beer and watch the game. The food is actually very good.

Good place to hang out with friends due to the long tables and great food. Drinks are always good. Price is good and a good spit for sports as they have a lot of TVs.

Don’t use the jukebox if the staff doesn’t like your music they will override it. Never happened to me until ³⁄₂₀ but its rude of them none the less. I’ve been here a lot and now I might not come back.

Yeah, this place is a hole. Even as far as dive sports bars go it’s bad. The kind of place where lonely suburbanites who have accomplished nothing in life and will go nowhere come to pass in a slow, lingering crawl to middle then old age… one liver cell at a time. In fairness middle-​aged man sitting next me to drinking vodka cranberry and telling his drinking buddy crass, out of date jokes about women’s body parts did just excitedly proclaim, «this is a pretty cool bar here!»

I had some pretty high hopes coming to the Joker considering this was one of the very few «Coug» bars on the West side of the state. I left slightly disappointed.
From the outside you can see the plethora of neon signs located in the corner of a strip mall. The actual space is quite large with TV’s everywhere. There are a couple of pool tables as well and some good beers on tap as well. We ordered some pitchers and when our server came back to hand them back to us I asked for some food menus and she said «Yes, one thing at a time.»
Hoping that things would get a little better, I went with some of their hot wings and a side of fries. I asked the server if the wings were actually spicy, and she said they were. Upon getting my order, about half of the wings were cold. This sucked. I also wasn’t a big fan of the sauce they were in as it was too «tomato-​y» and not very spicy. I was pretty starving so I ate them anyway but was pretty disappointed.
Normally, I’d probably give out a 2 or so, but I’m feeling generous and will give them the benefit of the doubt that this was a one-​time mess up.