Retro American Tap

Decent selection of brews. Bar tender didn’t seem too knowledgeable about them. Kitchen was closed at 7 on a Sunday. Lots of TVs, relaxed atmosphere. Very few people present, odd location.

Went in here last Saturday to have some drinks. $ 3 drafts were decently priced, but the service was pretty poor. Also, they close at 10pm on the weekend. There were ~20 people in the bar, and they closed. Bartender seemed kind of embarrassed to do last call at a quarter to 10. No real reason to come here over any of the other bars in town, and the early closing time is the final nail. Wouldn’t be surprised if this place isn’t open any more by the time summer rolls around.

Retro American Tap, 120 SW Water St., Peoria, scored a 56 on Nov. 17.
Violations included: Malt mix stored at the bar has scoop with the handle in the mix; dipper wells at bar and in the kitchen were not running; employee continually wiped hands on wet cloth; moldy bread was found stored in the walk-​in cooler; malt mix stored at the bar was not labeled; cooling foods were not labeled with time cooling began; no detectable sanitizer was found in the sanitizer bucket; wet wiping cloth was found at the server station; a number of food-​contact surfaces were soiled; a number of nonfood contact surfaces were soiled; heavily soiled pair of tennis shoes was stored directly on top of several single-​service articles; outdoor trash receptacle lid was open and area around it was soiled; floors throughout bar and kitchen area were heavily soiled and beer was trapped under stainless steel plate in walk-​in bar cooler, causing beer to come out of the floor when walked on; walls in the kitchen area were soiled; several items in the walk-​in cooler were out of date; bottle of bleach water was stored at the bar without a label; raw hamburger was stored above cooked meat in the walk-​in cooler.

I’ve had two experiences at Retro American Tap. First, the good. The place has a nice deck overlooking the river and there is always plenty of seating. It also has a great beer selection, including a number of Colorado microbrews you can’t get anywhere else in this town (that I know of.) Besides the microbrews, it has a number of cheap beer including Schlitz, Old Style, etc. I’ve been told, but haven’t verified that on Thursdays every beer is $ 2 or something like that.
For those reasons I really like Retro and want it stay around. Here’s the problem. Both times I’ve been there, the service has been terrible. The first time, it was just incredibly slow, the second time, no one came to our table for a long time. Eventually a member of my party went inside and asked, and the waitress rudely told us that someone will help us soon. No one ever did and we walked it. It’s not just that the service was slow. Both times I’ve been, there has been almost no one there, but every table was dirty, there were still menus lying around, the chairs and tables were scattered. In short, the servers aren’t doing anything. And I know they aren’t that busy!
If the service were better, it would be one of my favorite places in Peoria to have a drink (note: I’ve never had the food there.) The lack of service is a real turnoff though.

This is decent restaurant with good food and OK service. Plenty of seating and located on the Riverfront. We ate here over July 4 weekend, on a slow Sunday afternoon.
Name and Style:
Retro American Tap needs to remove «Retro» from name and stick with «American Tap». There was nothing really retro-​feeling about the place other than maybe the logo. The staff wears baseball jerseys which is cute and all-​American. Everything else felt like an after hours bar to watch sports or chill with friends.
Food:
My husband had the blackened chicken breast (great seasoning, juicy meat, may be too salty for some people). I had the bbq pulled pork on slaw sandwich (yum!) and waffle fries.
Service:
Service is OK. It wasn’t busy that day so our waitress would go chat with the hostess a lot. She was friendly.
Potato Bar:
FYI, the Potato bar is not open on weekends. (Too bad, it sounds fun.)

Three friends and I went here last Sunday night looking for a nice place to eat along the river and we were SO disappointed!
We waited a full 45 minutes to receive our food after we ordered. When the food finally came out two out of the four dishes were freezing cold. We had to ask our waitress to take the spaghetti and meatballs back to the kitchen to be microwaved. The other dishes were not as warm as they should have been either but now that we had waited an hour to eat we gave up and didn’t ask her go back to microwave again. We just ate our dishes as they were… lukewarm.
While waiting we watched a table next to us get served the wrong food which had to be taken back. The table across the way all got their food except for one person whose order has been completely forgotten and she got her food after everyone else was done eating. The table right behind us also received cold food and mentioned it to their waitress. (I know all this because we sat there for a full hour waiting without any food at all)
The real kicker came when we talked with the manager. He offered to give us 50% off our meal but they couldn’t even get THAT right. When we got our bill they had taken the original price and taken 20%, then the new price and took another 20%, then took the new price and took 10% off again. This ended up only being 43% off.
The truly sad part was that honestly, the food was very good but due to the long wait, terrible service, and cold plates we were served the experience was very frustrating.

We stopped for lunch this week. They offer a «potato» bar, which has baked potato, baked sweet potato, and all the fixins. The lunch menu also includes sandwiches and horseshoes.
My wife had the potato bar with a salad. My wife commented that their version of the greek salad, «The Retro Salad» was good, but it was missing the feta cheese. She was also a little put off at the temperature of the salad, commenting that the leaves were warm.
I had the bacon cheeseburger, which was pretty tasty. I prefer a smaller burger, which seems to go against the restaurant standard lately. The chef came by to check on us twice, which was refreshing. He also provided a free sample of their potato soup. The soup was VERY good, made from scratch with heavy cream.