I'm quite surprised that this place is still open - they never seem busy, other than bike night and car nights during the summer. I pulled into Quaker Steak around 5:30p on a Wednesday night and there might have been 10 other cars in the lot. I sat at the bar and waited for the rest of my group to arrive. There were two occupied tables in the bar area and about 10 other people at the bar. It seemed like half of those people at the bar were off-duty employees. The bartender was nice and quick to get my drink but the price was way out of whack - almost $7 for a double vodka (rail)....isn't it supposed to be happy hour?
When the rest of my party arrived we were seated in the dining area, in a booth. There were a few more occupied tables than the bar but it was still pretty quiet. And whenever I'm here it always seems like there's a bunch of employees just wandering around - severely over-staffed.
Our waiter was quick to greet us and get our drinks. He returned promptly to take our food order as well. We got the 4-wheeler appetizer which consisted of two soft pretzel sticks, some onion rings, 4 deep-fried pickles and 4 mozzarella sticks. We also ordered two buckets of wings. Everything came out really hot and as ordered. We were given plenty of ranch for the wings too.
Quaker Steak is always clean and most of the staff is friendly, but I just can't get over their prices. One drink, one appetizer and a bucket of approximately 18 wings ran us $45...not including tip. As we left, I noticed that PF Chang's (next doors) was extremely quiet too. Abuelo's (other side of PF Chang's) closed over a year ago...I think it's just a matter of time before these two places go too. There are just way too many delicious options in the Madison area that aren't franchises.