The Red Frog

Don’t let the new paint job and sleek menus fool you. The new owners have made this place an abomination to what the Red Frog used to be. Went there on a Friday, expecting the special to be the ribeye steak sandwich, but that’s no longer the case. Got the ribeye steak sandwich anyway, took them a good half hour to bring it out and they weren’t even busy. The sandwich arrived and it wasn’t a steak sandwich at all, instead it was shaved beef like a philly except there was no cheese or peppers and onions, just a tiny bit of crappy shaved beef on a cold bun. It doesn’t take you half an hour to make a philly. And an awful philly that you tried to pass as a steak sandwich. Service was subpar too, waitress/​bartender did not know what she was doing. This place is a joke, I wouldn’t waste your time. There are much better choices in Czech Village anyhow.

Good bar-​style food. Had the rueben and it was yummy! Felt so bad for the bartender/​waitress, though. We were in at 6pm on a Saturday night and she was working alone! Need more staff for weekends please! Good selection of beers and the menu has a lot of choices.

I come here regularly and the staff are friendly, and I love the Czech Village /​Newbo area but simply can no longer afford to drink my beer of choice there… Krusovice! Czech beer should be cheap in a Czech bar, right? Wrong! A bottle (pint) is $ 7.25! This trend of craft beers becoming more expensive than wine is just crazy…

I went to the Czech Village for another restaurant, and oddly enough at 6 pm, the only places open were a sports bar (this place) and a Caribbean-​looking bar. I was VERY disappointed to say the least. Both bars were uninspiring choices, but I went to the Red Frog because it was open and I hungry. There was barely any indication of a Czech influence aside from the Czech words on the sign with the Red Frog, the nice selection of some Eastern European beers, and a single Czech entrée on the menu. I ordered the goulash and it was surprisingly good — the meat was pretty tender and the sauce well flavored (not too salty). The «dumplings» were NOT what I was expecting, but I they were good I guess. It came with a couple of pieces of rye bread (I didn’t eat it) as well as applesauce (makes sense), but the applesauce was cold (not warm) and I suspect it was fresh out of a can/​jar. I will say that it was pretty good considering, so it was likely a better-​than-​crap brand of apple sauce, but still not homemade to match the homemade goulash.
I am giving this 3 stars because the goulash was good. If the goulash wasn’t as good, I probably would have given only 2 stars. It seems that a lot of people are impressed with this as a normal bar, so if that’s what you are looking for, then this place is for you. If you are looking for something more authentic, I’d go elsewhere.

I believe this place could be great if management trained better and service improved. Why is it so difficult to demand better of your servers? It seems simple: keep the chit-​chat between servers to a minimum; there’s time to talk when you aren’t on the clock. No cell phones allowed on the floor – if there’s an emergency and someone needs to contact you they can call the business phone. When someone gives you an order, write it down – it isn’t a race to see who has the best memory. Turn the music down when there are 3 people in there and it’s 5:00 pm.; we don’t want to shout over our dinner to be heard. We continue to go because we enjoy the food, however we would go much more often if service matured and improved.

Here for the weekend. Was looking for a good casual place to go. This is a bar but a family friendly place. I ordered the shrimp salad. It was a huge salad with 9 large shrimp, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onions all on romaine lettuce. Great value and tasted good.

Stopped by while in town for a place for a bite to eat and a drink. This definitely fit the bill.
Some good tap & bottled beer choices. Not going to blow your mind but more than just Miller & Bud.
I had a burger, it was really quite good.
Service was friendly & fast.
Nothing to complain about, pretty typical bar/​small sports bar experience.

Mostly a bar, but very family friendly with lots of kids running around. It is in the Czech portion of town and has a few Czech specialties, but is mostly pub grub. It was loud when I was there, but not unpleasant; it just required we talk louder than we usually do. I had the cabbage rolls dinner and really liked them. The filling was «meatier» than is typical, making it more solid (less flaky?) than I prefer, but it was really tasty. The sauce was sweeter than we make at home, but good. We think it may be the same as the pizza sauce, but we are not sure. Cabbage rolls came with dumplings in gravy and a cold applesauce with cinnamon, so we didn’t feel the need to order desert. The applesauce served the role of the desert sweetness, and overall there was a ton of food with each order.
We also had the cheesy cauliflower appetizer, which was very good, and one of our party had a calzone, which he liked.
All in all, we’d happily return if we are in Cedar Rapids again.

We’ve been there several times and had only good things to say… until the last few times we went. Recently we’ve been plagued by extremely rude waitstaff, incorrect orders (2 of 4 drinks and 2 of 4 meals!), long wait time after ordering, one person’s meal left behind in the kitchen for an extra 5 mins (or ~10 mins the 2^nd visit… and it was wrong), and worst of all, unapologetic management. I understand that it’s under new management, and all I can say is that I miss the old régime. The only reason they get two stars is that the food itself is decent, when they bother to bring it hot and it’s correct.

We had the Thursday special last week, BOGO free Lasagna dinner. A little too heavy on the Italian seasoning and the garlic bread wasn’t very good but overall it was pretty decent. Good service from the over-​worked bartender. She was very nice and had a good attitude despite being the only server that night. The onion rings were very tasty and they make all their own salad dressings. The wife prefers their menu over the Blue Toad next door (sorry Al). Al’s sister own’s the Red Frog now. There seems to be a little family feud going on here in Bo-​town so don’t get caught in the cross-​fire!

Cheesy breaded cauliflower were not that good tonight, but tonight it was a nice relaxing night nice and quite with 11 people just hanging out!
They have red beer here on St. Joesph’s day! Great times down here for that!
Czech town is a great place to hit up on a week day or on the weekends and this is a must stop to just enjoy Cedar Rapids, history of the area!