Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery

Stay away from this place if you want good service or food. Our server had absolutely no desire to be of any service to us or to make it sound like this was a remotely decent place to dine at. The food was mediocre at best. However, the silver lining was undoubtedly the beer — which was great! The hop bomb IPA was absolutely fantastic!

Food is consistently pretty good here (especially their nachos), but it’s a flip of the coin if your service will be good or horrible. That said, I’ve still never had «great» service. I’ve sat at the patio numerous times during the summer, and that has always been a pleasant experience. You can’t beat the view. Expect a decently long wait, though, as it’s very popular during the nicer Wisconsin seasons.
Last time we were here we had some of the worst service any of us have ever had anywhere. As someone else noted in a different review, you couldn’t have paid us to leave a tip, it was that bad. We also found out during that same visit that during live football games there is a special Happy Hour. The caveat is that YOU need to notify YOUR SERVER that you’d like to partake in the Happy Hour or they will not give you the Happy Hour menu or EVEN LET YOU KNOW THAT IT EXISTS. So a bunch of people who don’t know there is a happy hour going on get gypped by buying the exact same food at full price. This B.S. is what pushed me to give this place 3 stars instead of 4.

I came here on a weekday night and sat at a bar table. I ordered a Moscow Mule and the jalapeño calamari to start. The drink was great and the calamari was unique and spicy, I really enjoyed the dipping sauce that came with it. I ordered the jambalaya which I was a little nervous about but I was pleasantly surprised. The spices were very well blended with the perfect amount of heat and the rice was very well flavored. Despite being incredibly full, I couldn’t stop shoveling it into my mouth.
The server was great and responsive, even when he had five people at the bar and a few tables to manage all at the same time. My wait time for everything was short. The overall cleanliness of the restaurant was great and the host and manager were equally as warm and attentive as the server. The prices were also exactly what one would expect, and the happy hour prices make everything very affordable.
Strongly recommend this restaurant if you’re in the area, though there are many breweries to choose from, the food here is great!

The steak I had was one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. The service however was great. They gained a star for their service. It is a great location as well. I’m willing to give them another shot.

HAPPY HOUR REVIEW
Came here for happy hour and sat at the bar. The place was quite busy. I had a glass of wine, I don’t really remember what, because it wasn’t super memorable. What was memorable though were the $ 2 bar snacks. I really enjoyed the chorizo & cotija pretzel bites and the black bean & corn flautas. With $ 2 bar snacks, you could really make a cheap meal out of happy hour here.

Atmosphere and service was great for a chain restaurant Beer is tasty and the food is good for a chain restaurant. Got a protip to flip the mac&cheese upside down onto the plate to get all the tasty cheese.

I tried coming here for dinner last month but my group was turned away because apparently the kitchen closed at 9, ON A SATURDAY. This is unheard of. Even restaurants that are far outside of downtown will stay open until 10 or later on weekends. This time we arrived around 7 so everything was up and operational. As busy as the place was we didn’t have to wait long for a table.
The menu was pretty varied but all the food was quite pricey. I ordered the Angus tips and when the dish arrived I could not find them among the mushrooms and gravy. The dish looked nothing like the menu photo — which I can understand — but I’d at least expect to be able to see the meat and distinguish it from sliced mushrooms. For $ 19, a meal that comes with no salad should at least have meat that is large enough to see and plentiful enough to be worth it. The mashed potatoes were not flavored as described either, but at least the onion strings were good. It’s sad when the garnish on the plate is better than the meal. My husband liked his dinner but had the same complaint about the mashed potatoes. I had a lemonade and he ordered a beer. This is the ridiculous part — my lemonade cost more than the beer. It’s fountain lemonade! Why does it cost more than alcohol?!
My favorite part about the meal was dessert. We only ordered one to share because it was half off for the month. They offer little mason jars with different flavored cakes. We got a salted caramel toffee cheesecake one. It was the most delicious and worthwhile item we had gotten all night. The waitress herself gets a star for recommending it to us.
So this place only gets two stars, and it’s mostly because it’s a large, cool old building and they have different activities here such as trivia nights and food pairings. I take stars away because the food was not that good and it’s noisy. Really noisy. And we were seated near a group of shrieking women who insisted on singing bad songs very loudly the whole time. But even prior to that it was hard to have a conversation and hear any of it. Also, for the better half of the night all the televisions were tuned to the same channel. When you have 20 tv’s, you vary up the programming.
I gave this place two tries and both times I was disappointed. It makes me sad because this is a convenient centrally located restaurant along the riverwalk downtown.

Delightful, I got the pulled bbq sandwich with apple coleslaw and it was amazing! Good atmosphere, nice wait staff and awesome food!

I think almost all the people that come here are people from out of town on business and don’t know where else to go. The patio is awesome in the summer. But the beer isn’t good and it isn’t cheap.

Fun place!
I’ve been here just a couple of times and once was by boat – very fun. Great apps, beer and cocktails.
Their BBQ Chicken Salad is also delicious.
For a full review of their bloody mary, visit
.

RIVER BEER
We were looking for a fun place to grab a drink. Many of the bars we walked past didn’t have the outdoor seating we were craving. We were attending an event but had an hour to kill. We noticed that the bridges on the river kept going up every 2 – 5 minutes. So we decided to make sure we got on the correct side of the river so we didn’t miss our event.
As we were strolling along the river walk we had to walk through the Rock Bottom Brewery river front bar & restaurant. Apparently it is directly in the middle of the river walk. I noticed signs that said it was okay to cut through. As we were cutting through we decided to grab two seats at the bar to kill some time. I must say that if this was a location in Chicago we would have not scored these prime seats. So I must give bonus points to Milwaukee.
We looked over the beer list and asked for two samples. Patrick our bartender was really nice and had no problem letting us sample them. My wife liked my beer more so we decided to order two Naughty Scot Scotch Ales with an ABV of 7.2% What I loved is that this beer was a Milwaukee original which means it wasn’t made on the west coast. Milwaukee is such a rich beer town and for the Rock Bottom Brewery to let them create their own brew is fantastic. The beer was a darker beer that had flavors of toasted malt with a sweet spicy finish. I loved that it wasn’t totally heavy. This is the first dark beer my wife has ever had to drink besides taking sips of mine over the years. For her to drink a whole dark beer tells me that it wasn’t very heavy.
As we sat on the river watching the boats go by we could not help but watch the bridges going up and down. We also noticed all of the traffic. We then asked our bartender if this only happens on Sundays. He informed us that it happens every day and it’s really annoying. The other bartender jumped in to agree with Patrick. Then the manager came over to tell us how two days ago he was sitting at the bridge across the river for 10 minutes in his car and he couldn’t get to work. So I am assuming that everyone has been late to work or a meeting in Milwaukee and the bridge excuse has been used every single time.
We enjoyed the river action and we were happy we choose the correct side to relax on. I honesty can say the bridge situation would be annoying but I wasn’t going to let it bother me unless I ever have to move here. I really enjoyed my Naughty Scot Scotch Ale. I wished I had time to grab a second one but we needed to get to our boat dock. Oh yeah we were boarding a boat and we would now be causing a few people to be late to wherever they were going. Luckily I was on that boat and nothing could stop us.
So if you find yourself in Milwaukee in the summer then head here and grab a seat on the river. Rock Bottom makes a bunch of fantastic brews. They have food too but we didn’t have anything. This is a great place to chill out and relax with some brews.

Lovely chain restaurant along the Milwaukee River Walk. That deck in the summertime is hard to beat! The food, beverages, and service were nothing outstanding. The view along the river? Yes, that was outstanding.
I don’t go out of my way to come here, but I don’t mind coming here. It’s a solid place.

This restaurant is really great during the summertime! You can sit out on the patio, enjoy a drink and watch the boats go by. I definitely go for the location, than I go for the food. Not saying the food is bad, but it’s a little pricey if you compare to other patio locations downtown Milwaukee. I ordered the nachos. They were really great, but also $ 13. Just something to keep in mind when you are downtown! You have to ask yourself if you are in it for the experience, or in it for food quality/​price.
Recommended place to bring family and friends who are visiting during summer/​fall seasons! Beautiful location.

It’s a chain so I’m not a big fan from the start. But! There have been chains to win me over before, so it’s totally possible.
They have $ 2 off drinks happy hour special until 6 (we were there on a Wednesday).
You’d think the server would pay close attention to this critical time frame since I arrived about 5:45. I went to find them, she was busy training — I don’t know who but there were four servers at the register. I just wanted my drink order in. Finally I get it in, go back to my table and my friend also wants another wine before the special was over at 6. Soooooo… I get back up to tell them again that we need another drink at our table.
We had a show to get to, so made sure when they got around to our table that they knew we had to leave by 7pm. It was weird that there were so many servers including the ones in training but it was difficult to find a server. This got a bit better later on just before it was check time ;)
I got the bison burger. The menu talks about how the beef is fresh, never frozen — great! But what about the bison? Is it, too, fresh and never frozen?! I dared not ask the training serves as I knew they wouldn’t know and by the way things were going we didn’t have time to let them go get answers — we needed our orders in or we’d miss the start of the show.
Burger comes out, ketchup on table, mustard was a special ask, onion rings were cold. The greasier kind, too. Not bad tasting, necessarily. But, no time to give it a second thought. It was all just fine enough to sustain needing to eat.
I ordered a second drink: sangria. It pretty much sucked and is probably the worst sangria I’ve ever had. Barely any flavor besides sugar. I didn’t detect much alcohol. Maybe a teaspoon? Drinks are expensive so that’s why I expect for them to taste like drinks.
It’s a chain what should I expect?
This is why I have predispositions from the start. I’ll give credit but only when credit’s due.
This wasn’t my pick for dinner before a show but sometimes you gotta let your fiends get a turn picking and you have to suck it up :)

This place was amazing, but I have to give it 4 stars because of the service.
We went as a party of 5, and called ahead since we forgot to make reservations. They told us the wait would be an hour, which is typically for a Saturday night. The hostess was unprofessional, and rolled her eyes at us. She was not dressed professional either, and she stated she was the «assistant manager» of the establishment. She seated another party of 5 that came in after us, and her excuse was that the reservations were lost, and that we could wait. We had two kids in tow no less, and those people had five teenagers. You think they would sit the party with kids, but no they seat the people who are young teenagers. Finally, we got fed up, and asked to see a manager, but the «assistant manager «seated us. I immediately asked for the manager, but she said she would her. She never did.
The server was awesome, and felt bad for what had happened to us. She took our drink orders, and took our appetizers down, and then brought the manager over. The manager gave us complimentary apps for us, and we were very happy. She also stated that the «assistant manager» was not an assistant manager, and she was a host. We tried the flight sample, and it was very good. All of the beer selections were top notch.
The appetizers were amazing, and the service was quick. We ordered cheese curds and crab and artichoke dip, that was very good. The entrees were plated beautifully when served, and were served hot, not cold, which is very good. The entrees were so big, we had to take home our food. Then we ordered dessert, which was a raspberry and dark chocolate mousse in a mason jar that was so good. The chef made us raspberry mousse from scratch because they ran out, and felt bad for what had happened for us.
I was overall very happy with the restaurant and would come back next time on a reservation however. The restaurant was very good.

This place has the best club sandwich. Everyone in our group ended up ordering it. The ratio of the meats to the cheese to the lettuce, tomato and bread is wonderful. It just works very well to create a tasty sandwich. Fries are hard to do wrong and I also love the fries they have here. $ 6 for a beer flight, sounds good to me. I pleasantly surprised by how good the Hop Bomb IPA was. I wasn’t expecting to like it much at all it was definitely my favorite of the six beers.
Service was good. No complaints. Went during the day, during the week so the place wasn’t crowded. Parked in the lot adjacent to their restaurant and paid $ 1. Aside from the parking attendant being a but rude because I didn’t see the sign to see him first and pay before parking, it was an enjoyable afternoon.