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| - OTB is a bar that I really want to like, their menu has interesting items on it(Seitan parm? Burgers with peanut butter?), the atmosphere is cool, and the specials are great(Burgers, tacos, beer, etc)... Why can't this place just keep its stuff together to really make it shine?
I'll start with the positives: The food is good and well priced. On a Monday we went and grabbed two veggie burgers($5/ea): The Bicycle Advocate and the Pedal Pittsburgher. They don't come with fries on a Monday but no big, we split a side since they were only $2. The burgers came dripping in their respective sauces making them hard to eat, but giving us plenty to dip our fries in. The buffalo mozzarella, sauteed spinach, and sriracha ranch all went perfectly with each other. My girlfriend also loved her burger, and while we originally intended on going halfsies, we both agreed we liked the ones we got and stuck with them.
The beer was cheap too, they have $2 PBR pounders all day, and usually another bottle that is either $2(Like Monday's Yuengling) or a few dollars off($3 off East End, $2 off Oskar Blues)
I wish I could stop there on my review, but I have to reiterate what other people on here have said: The service leaves to be desired, as it was quite slow. I understand that this is a dive bar, the kitchen is sure to be small, and the place was by no means slow, but does it really take an hour and a half to make pre-cooked(boca) burgers? Beyond that, in the 2 and a halfish hours we were there, we got checked on(Including getting our check and getting our food) about 5 times.
Another point, good and bad, is that Monday is also trivia night at 9pm(Burgers and trivia on the same night? Awesome!) so we also came out for that. however, in the back portion of the bar, it is almost impossible to hear, so us(and a few other tables) wound up running up to the bar to hear ever question. The trivia is pretty well run, though - they have you take your answers up each time and keep a running total as opposed to taking a half hour or more to tally everyone's up(Brillobox...). The questions were OK, though the music between questions was not.
OTB has a lot of specials that are definitely going to keep me coming back.. To me, slow service at a dive bar is to be expected and nobody was rude, so I can't hold it against them - but it does prevent them from being a Pittsburgh destination(unless you're a bike-fanatic). I will update the review if I have to, to reflect any changes(Maybe on $.25 seitan wing Wednesdays!) in service to hopefully give them a higher rating. In my opinion if you cross this place off your list due to warnings of bad service then you're going to miss out, just come with some good friends and time to kill.
Also - Obviously, biking here is optimal to avoid parking, but depending on the time of day you can avoid the meters that run until 10pm by going a block off Carson to Sarah Street or another side street.
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