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| - A friend mentioned to me that they'd recently opened, and it was nice to see someone opening up a different ethnic restaurant since it seems that you can't swing a dead cat by it's tail in Mentor without hitting a pizza joint...
I came it at 2000, and there were a few tables seated, but I'd hardly call the place packed. I only saw one waitress handling everyone, but they had no hostess, so I waited to see if anyone was going to take notice or if I aught to just seat myself. She eventually made her way over to me and I opted to sit at the bar.
The barmaid was very friendly, but you could tell that both she and the waitress were obviously over-worked, and the place was understaffed. She mentioned that the restaurant had only just opened up this past March, so I can understand if it might take a little while for it to find it's feet.
I opted for the Haufbrau Dunkel (nothing to write home about), and saw that while they have a reasonable selection of beers, all they had on draft were the Haufbrau brands. You'd be inclined to think that if you were eating in a German restaurant, they might have a good selection of German beers on draft, not just bottles. Frankly, I can get a Sam Adams in a bottle at a convenient store.
The interior is nicely decorated with a lot of Om-pa-pa music playing, and I was told that they have an outdoor Biergarten as well, but I didnt check it out.
Where the place went downhill for me was the food, and moreso what I paid for it:
If I'm getting a sample plate of their wurst and paying $12 for it, I want more than just 5 or six nubby ends of sausages hidden amongst pickles and half a loaf of bread accompanied by a "beer" cheese that tasted like someone added Budweiser to some nacho-cheese spread. The Wurst plate seemed more like the Worst-plate!
The home-made German mustard was exceptional, but it's going to take more than a good condiment to keep this place afloat.
The Kartoffelpuffel (potato pancakes) were sizeable, but very greasy and lacked flavor. All it would have taken was for the cook to let them rest on some paper-towels while covered to get some of the grease out and actually season the potatoes. It just tasted more like a giant McDonalds hash brown to me.
It's pretty easy to see that this place is going through some growing pains; they seem understaffed, and while some of the food (namely the Wurst) is good, it is overpriced for the quality. 2 Beer and 2 appetizers was $30 out of pocket for me alone!
I expected a Haufbrau house, and what I got was a bar that serves overpriced, mediocre German food and beer that I could buy at any local liquor store. In summation, I will say that this place has a lot of potential, and moreso that Mentor needs a good German place, but the management needs to take a hard look at their pricing, plate composition, and elevating their food if they want to draw people in and keep them from just going to Das Schnitzel Haus, or the Haufbrau in downtown Cleveland.
One last criticism: Where are the fucking Germans at anyway? I greeted the barmaid with a Guten Abend she looked at me cross-eyed.
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