The Local

Used to be a favorite after work on Fridays. But tonight discovered the pretentious suburbanites that really frequent this place. And stuck their nose up at offering to move down a seat at the bar to make room for me and my boyfriend. When we tried to carve out our own space near — but not blocking — the «order here» area, the pony tailed guy behind the counter said «we were kinda in his space.» That was our cue to leave and not look back. That’s we get for going to the burbs.

We’ve been here several times and it’s usually pretty good — the service is friendly but not outstanding, it’s reasonably quick and the food is fresh and tasty.
Today was a different story. They were out of two of the things we ordered (which is a lot considering their limited menu, the two people working seemed sort of despondent or more interested in socializing and we sat here for over 10 minutes waiting to see anyone cooking our food. Finally a cook sluggishly meandered over from somewhere else in the store, glanced at our ticket, scowled, rolled her eyes began slowly cooking.
Gastropubs are meant to be good quality food served quickly, but I can’t think of any other quick service where I’d be willing to wait over 20 minutes for my food.

The Local gets three stars primarily for its food and beer selection. My husband and I bellied up to the bar in Whole Foods on a busy Friday night. After a few minutes of trying to catch one of the server’s attention, we were told that we actually needed to order at the cash register at the end of the bar. Strike one — The Local needs to update its ordering system, or at the very least, they need to make it MUCH more clear where one goes to order food and drink.
Strike two– As I mentioned, it was busy, but not jam-​packed (unlike 101 Beer Kitchen down the street, who had a 90 minute wait). It took us 15 minutes to get our beers. We actually got our food first, and my husband had to then tell the server that we got beers, too.
The food itself was good enough — we got a basket of fries to share. It came with garlic aioli that was very, very good. The Local had a good selection of beers, and a nice happy hour ($ 2 drafts).
Despite this, I may not go back anytime soon. The Local is an appealing concept, but it really needs to improve its customer service for me to want to go through this experience again. The service we got tonight was as cold as the stainless steel counter at the bar.

Open a week and very exciting. If they had been open longer I would probably have only given 4 stars. The menu is a little limited and they are still working out some kinks, but it’s only going to get better!
All the associates were very nice. They actively sought feedback on how to improve and fix those hiccups that every place has during its startup.