Club Charlies

This place is on a beautiful little corner in the 3rd Ward with a nice patio on the sidewalk and lots going on around you.

I went on friday for the first time and I can say it was good!  I had the perch for friday fish fry and it was fantastic. truly delicious. but it was really the only good thing about the experience.

the service was incredibly slow.  it was very busy but i'm not sure if they were understaffed or what... it took 10+ minutes to even get menus after we asked for them.  We sat outside and it was beautiful but it seemed like everyting (except for the food) took way too long.  I am not a stickler for immediate service, i worked in the service industry for a long time.. but waiting 10-15 minutes for a menu after asking for some is not good...

That is why i give this place 3 stars.  The food was great, the drinks were moderately priced, but the service was slow. maybe i will update it if i go back.

Went during Milwaukee Downtown Dining week and the place was packed. Our server was nice and attentive as he could be with a busy restaurant but the food was just ok. My salad was warmer than I would have liked from potentially sitting in the window too long, and my dessert didn't have much flavor. My chicken pot pie was really good, but way too large of a portion. My friends' steaks were extremely tough to cut and chew. The potato portion was overwhelmingly large with their steaks too but they did enjoy the potatoes.

I've wanted to like Club Charlies on every visit, and yet, every visit I leave liking it less. I know this place has its cult following. As a long-time neighbor, I wanted to be part of that cult following at one point. Not anymore.

I thought Downtown Dining Week would be the perfect opportunity to give Charlie's another chance. With such great options on the menu, a sunny summer afternoon, and a whole hour for lunch today, what could go wrong? Well.  A lot.  

When we arrived today at 1230pm -- understandably a peak time during DDW -- we couldn't locate a host. The manager/owner was racing around, so I politely asked if there was a list or if we can just take an open seat. He said "You can take a seat but it will be awhile before anyone gets to you."  This did not exactly inspire confidence that anyone had even been assigned to our table.

We sat at an open table and waited 20 minutes while four different servers delivered checks and cleared tables around us (including the manager) but nobody offered us menus or waters. At 1250pm, I literally flagged down a server and asked if we could place our orders. She seemed perturbed by the request and disappeared.  Another server (who had eyed us repeatedly but never said a word to us) approached the table and asked for our order.  We still didn't have menus, silverware or beverages when our starters arrived.

While the Downtown Dining Week deal was a tremendous offer, the service was atrocious. Everything we asked for -- drink reorders, napkins, salt -- resulted in our server disappearing for a minimum of 10 minutes. At one point, he vanished for over 20. In the meantime, nobody else would help us.  I'd venture to guess our meals were sitting on the line for at least 10 minutes, too, since hot entrees were served cold and cold entrees were served room temperature.  This really disrupted what should have been a fast and easy lunch today.  

Worst yet, the manager/owner was present in the dining room, yet only waited on one or two tables, ignoring everyone else (including other parties who had been seated and left waiting for 20+ minutes without attention of any kind.)  I really struggled to understand what kind of manager would focus on two tables at the cost of an entire dining room of people needing assistance.  Treating those other tables as if they don't exist is a great way to ensure they won't exist again in the future. If he had done even a lap around the dining room and asked, "how are we doing today?" he would have made a tremendous difference.

We ordered our dessert, the check, and to-go packaging at the same time, since we didn't anticipate a prix fixe lunch to last 90 minutes, and couldn't afford for our server to disappear unexplainably yet again.  Our server thanked us for our patience, but we had long before lost it by that point. Overall, it was a disjointed and stressful experience, and I was really unhappy with the outcomes.  By the time we left, the restaurant was virtually empty, so the major gaps in service made even less sense than when we arrived.

Some restaurants can handle the added volume that Downtown Dining Week brings. In fact, most flourish with the business that flows through their doors.  And some can't.