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| - The food is great, but the service is lousy. Don't go here unless you have a few hours to kill waiting to be seated...or for your order to be taken...or for your check. We are locals, not college students, and this place is within walking distance from our house. We would really love to make this our regular haunt, but after several frustrating attempts to eat & drink here, we've had to find somewhere else to hang out for game night.
Boulders is actually a really nice restaurant and bar with a friendly atmosphere and a fantastic craft beer selection, and the food is inexpensive and fresh and delicious, but we have had service problems soooo many times. We have been there to eat and drink and have waited for a half an hour to be greeted, and several times we have been there and our meal from beginning to end has taken 2-3 hours to complete. Twice we have been denied a table altogether because of Trivia night, and we were turned away.
The wait staff seem to not use the "section system", and I surmise that the "team effort" system is that everyone is supposed to watch everyone's tables. This may work in some places, but it definitely doesn't work here. Sometimes you seat yourself, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's marked "Seat Yourself", but sometimes it's not. So, you may find yourself standing there for a while wondering what to do while the servers walk past, especially when it's busy. You have to kinda wander around and hope you find a table somewhere. It's a bit awkward, even if you've been there a few times. On one visit, we stood at the host stand for 30 minutes waiting for someone to acknowledge us. No one did. I left a note that we had waited, but we were hungry so we were going up the street to a competing establishment. I had hoped that might alert the management that there had been a problem. It didn't...
On another visit, a hostess greeted us, and we were told that it was trivia night and that we couldn't be given a table because people could pretty much stay there all night if they wanted. Instead of having a non-trivia section for regular diners, we were turned away. This happened once in the fall and again in the spring.
On our next visit, the same 30 minute seating wait occurred at the host stand. The servers went back and forth several times, not even so much as an "Are you being helped?" until finally one of the bartenders was walking past and asked if we were picking up an take-out order. It was then that we found out we were supposed to just go sit down. It was very busy, and we got lucky that we found one table open. However, once we did, we sat at the table for another 30 minutes while no one greeted us or even took a drink order. There were tables with guests all around us, and servers were actively waiting them, but no one ever came to our table. On our way out, someone asked how everything was. We said we didn't know because we'd been there for an hour and had never even been given a menu.
If you DO manage to get a table and get an order placed, make sure that you ask for everything you might need right up front when they bring your food, including anymore drinks. Table check-backs are few and far between, and if you ask for something, chances are your meal will be over before you even get it. We often have to flag someone down to bring us our check, and this is sometimes a half hour to 45 minutes after we've finished eating. This is apparently normal and occurs more often then not. We had some friends meet us there for dinner once. It was somewhat embarrassing to have to ask for a box for his wife just as her meal came because the service had been so slow that she missed her dinner opportunity before she had to leave for work.
The wait staff are very friendly, the owners are great people, and the food and atmosphere is very nice, but it's kind of a pain to eat there, especially if you're hungry or have other things you want to do that night. We really wish we could eat there all the time, which is why we keep going back and trying again and again. We would be in there all the time, at least once a week, but the service continues to be too unpredictable to be able to enjoy the evening. The place does, however, have take-out, which is something that we do when we're in the mood for the food and you want to go get it and bring it back before the game starts. If you get take-out, you may not get beer and hang out, but at least you'll get food and service, plus, it's good for your wallet, since you're not spending nearly as much as you would if you dined in.
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