Lokals

During a recent trip to Utah, and after passing by several times during our visit, my girlfriend and I decided to grab a late-night dinner at Lokals.  The atmosphere was as can be expected at a sports bar so nothing special but definitely fits with what they're doing.  The server/owner (Melinda) was super friendly and helpful and went out of her way to guide us through both food and alcohol options.  The wing sauces are great and there are plenty of choices and they have a great selection of beers on tap as well.  We both decided on wings (traditional... they have boneless too but those are for sissies) and also ordered a side of "spuds," which are their version of fries.  The wing sauces were great but they do bake the wings instead of frying them.  While this is certainly a healthier option, I would prefer them fried... I don't go to a sports bar for wings in an attempt to be healthy... still pretty good wings!  The spuds were great. We got the mixed batch (plain and spicy) along with some dipping sauce and they really were enjoyable.

All in all, Lokals was a great experience and we will definitely be back next time we're in town.  As for the negative reviews on here, the place just opened a few months ago so I'm sure there were some bugs to be worked out so hopefully people will give them another chance.

The food wasn't TERRIBLE -- it was average -- but we had to wait for 50 minutes for it.  The server and manager came by to apologize for the wait ("unfortunately, you came after a REALLY big party"...which was 8 people, and the ONLY other table in the restaurant), but they didn't even think to offer appetizers or anything else to make our wait more bearable.  Our beers were warm and shallow by the time our food got to us.  This place...tsk tsk tsk...had potential, but we're not going to bother to see it.

I went to Lokals after seeing it a few times when shopping at Smiths or driving in the area. My wife and I decided to check it at as it is one of the closest restaurants to our house and they serve beer in Utah county.

Atmosphere: This place is a sports bar, they have a big screen and other flat screens spread throughout the restaurant. Overall, nothing special.

Service: When we came in the front door there was a guy at the counter where it says please wait to be seated and he looked down at the seating chart and said "go over and sit down somewhere over there"....OK...so we walked over and then the waitress walked by us a few times and went to other tables that were seated after us. After my wife asked for menus the waitress finally came over to ask us if we were ready (1 minute after we got the menus). Overall our waitress was nice, but forgot things and had to be asked multiple times for certain items.

Menu: Very lousy layout (I went to Culinary school and took a course on Menu design and layout so I have some knowledge here). It was hard to determine what was on the menu, the font is horrible, and the options are quite lousy. Very much bar food, not really going to last in highland/Alpine/Lehi area. If they are going to survive in this particular area, they need to understand their demographics. You can't just put a restaurant in the area and expect it to work.

Food: Well after we had to wait a very long-time for our food to come to the table (and there were other people that had to wait even longer than we did). Everything is baked in a pizza like oven, which leads to many problems (1) timing, it takes forever to cook just about everything other than pizza in such an oven (2) you are limited to the style of the food. The potato "Fry's" were soggy and cold, the sandwich and chicken were good but nothing special. The best thing was the blue cheese salad dressing. overall the food was not worth the wait, which is a major problem for this restaurant.

Recommendations for Management: You restaurants has good potential as you can cater to a specific demographic and you are the only sit down restaurant in the area that is not fast food or fast casual. Your biggest issue is your cooking system, WAY TO SLOW. You can get crispy, no friend food much faster if you installed "AirFryer", so you can offer health food that is not friend. Your pizza cooking technique might have seemed cool, but it is going to kill your restaurant. If you read your reviews on here, you will see the same problem from almost all of your customers. Your service needs to be improved, its not bad, but needs some improvement. Your menu needs to be simplified and the font needs to be something that is easier to read. You do not need to have a "cool" menu, people just need to find something they are interested in and order and then they hand the wait staff the menu. Your restaurant is clean, has a good location and can cater to people looking to watch the game or fight and get a beer in the Alpine/Highland area. Make some slight changes and you will do well, if not, it will be yet another vacant spot in that shopping mall.