Forecasters Pub - Redhook Brewery

First visit since the remodel was afternoon of July3th.  Cannot decide how to describe the layout. Seems more of a summer camp cafeteria with a Disco/Sports Bar in the middle.  It no longer has that mountain lodge feeling.

While the staff was friendly they were not good, everyone appears to be new and poorly trained or perhaps trained to encourage the fastest table turn-over rate . . . a chain restaurant approach not the comfortable pub style.  Food service was very slow with food quality about the same as the old days. OK but not special.

I'll give them another try or two.  Am glad I decided to wait a year before 'buying' a numbered Mug,  likely won't be visiting The Forecasters Pub enough to use.

We get here and there's a 45 minute wait.  No big deal, It's a restaurant and that happens.  They're out of the beer I want.  No big deal, it's a bar, that happens.  We soon notice an empty table in the back.  15 minutes goes by and it's still empty. I ask one of the hostesses if it's bar seating that's first come first serve.  She tells me no, they're seating someone there in a minute.  No harm in trying, right?  15 or so more minutes roll past, the table is still empty... Another member of our party inquires about it.  Now it's "reserved".  This is when I got the bad feeling that BS was among us.  Who reserves a table in the corner of a bar?  Another 10 minutes or so AND THEY SEAT US AT THE TABLE WE'VE BEEN ASKING ABOUT!  The hostess, who is now seating us, comes clean.  "...The wait staff in this section needed a break, they just had 2 10 tops..."  I guess customers lose value due to people having to do their job at this fine establishment?  They were also out of fries.  WOW...  Also (just to twist the knife) their Witbier is poorly executed.  Zero banana or clove phelonic and no presence of coriander in the nose or mouth.  It's a decent Hefeweizen, but it's NOT a Witbier.  Next time we'll stop at 192 Brewing Company.

The newly remodeled Forecasters pub is a serious disappointment. The layout is now square, overcrowded, and awkward to navigate. There are more servers than ever, but our service was very poor. Our server spent his time watching one of the games and the food arrived luke warm. The burgers at Forecasters used to be simple (nothing fancy), but tasty. The cold-dry lumps of beef delivered to our table at the new Forecasters pub were a shock!

The new look/feel/experience appears to be motivated purely by number of butts you can put in chairs. Reminiscent of the new norm in air travel, the outcome is roughly the same, a bad experience that you would only suffer though when you really needed to.

Being Woodinville residents, and regulars for over a decade -- we will give the new pub one or two more chances to improve post-remodel. It would be a bummer if things don't improve -- sometimes you want a bit more restaurant than Teddy's Bigger Burgers, and a bit less than Barking Frog. But if push comes to shove, at least you can rely on each of those restaurants to never let you down. Sorry to say that is no longer true of Redhook.