Rusty Bucket Restaurant and Tavern

Didn’t wait long for a table and was quickly serviced. Our waiter checked on us often and even picked up small trash on our table to keep it clean for us. Food was delicious and cooked to perfection, just wish they didn’t preseason the fries (personally not a big fan of pepper, and even the pepper loving husband didn’t like that all too much). Overall, wonderful choice and will definitely visit again.

For a chain, my lady and i really like this rusty bucket location. We always start off with the shrimp cocktail which is doused in the perfect amount of old bay and comes with more than enough shrimpies flr two!
So far ive resorted to the turkey burger & fish tacos, both are fab. I like the fries and coleslaw as sides as well. I am yet to find something i dont like! And my lady is OBSESSED with the black bean burger.
Only complaint here is that its a little pricey… But other than that its always good food & great service!

Gross… medium well means a rare burger… crispy sweet potato fries means a douse in flour before hitting the fryer. …I don’t think so… a manager who wants you to feel it’s your privilege to be able to be eating in HIS restaurant. …definitely not..

Overall I would have to say this place was decent with good food. Our waiter Zack, was very helpful in our request for information and the selection he recommended for myself was spot on delicious. The bar had plenty to choose from so that rated high marks from our party.

I have eaten at many Rusty Bucket establishments before, and this one was very disappointing. I had ordered a take out order and got there to find that the server had given away my food to another customer. I then waited another 30 minutes at the restaurant to get half of my order, then another 10 minutes on top of that to get the other half. When I finally got home my food was cold and there were hardly any fries, which might sound like a small complaint but after a long wait I was hoping to at least enjoy the meal I was looking forward to. I don’t have any problem with Rusty Bucket as a restaurant because I have had great experiences at other locations. However, the service at this specific location was unacceptable and I will not be returning anytime soon. I would definitely not recommend.

Great experience and great chicken. We wanted to be seated in a booth where we could see all the TVs for football games, and they accommodated whatever we wanted. My boyfriend and I split a wedge salad with chicken (delicious) and the buffalo chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries. They split both plates in the kitchen, cutting each in half, which was really nice! Very impressed with quality of the chicken in both dishes. Sweet potato fries weren’t the best, but still decent (I like mine crispier). Overall, love this place — food and service.

The Reuben has been ruined with corned beef that is gristly, sliced too thick, and very little flavor. Used to be my favorite.

My wife loooooves the buffalo chicken sandwich at the Rusty Bucket… so it makes her sad that I personally don’t love the Rusty Bucket.
Well first of all, there always seems to be a wait to be seated here. When I went last night around 7pm, we waited 25 minutes. Kudos to them for taking your cell phone number and texting you when your seat is ready so that you don’t have to sit and wait at the restaurant… but I prefer not to wait. (When dining with kids, every minute you wait to be seated is a minute closer to a meltdown from one of the kids!) If the restaurant was super busy, I understand… but they were not that busy last night. Multiple open seats… just none for us as there were multiple 2-​seater tables open. They seemed to have an unusually high number of 2 seater tables here.
Their menu is typical pub fare with a few standouts. The buffalo chicken sandwich as mentioned above, and the ahi tuna wrap are both excellent. I do wish they gave more french fries on the side. They’re unfortunately a competitor for having the smallest side of french fries in the city of Columbus.
Perhaps my biggest beef with my visit from last night was the poor draft beer selection. I originally inquired about their Rogue seasonal, and was told that they don’t have that available. So I ordered the Rogue 7 Hop IPA and 5 minutes later… yep, that one’s not available either. Their taps for Palm and Sam Adams were also apparently busted. I prefer beers from microbrews, so was disappointed to find that all the other beers were made by Anheiser-​Busch/​InBev or MillerCoors. I ended up going for the one exception– the Magic Hat pumpkin ale. I just learned though that Magic Hat is owned by the same company that brews Gennessee and Labatt (in the U.S.). Womp womp. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be for me last night.
They’re supposed to have 13 beers on tap, so they still have 9 out of 13 taps going isn’t THAT bad. But since they’re a tavern/​pub, I have to hold them to a higher standard… I’d be equally annoyed if I went to a sushi restaurant and they only had 9 out of 13 fish available.

Slow service. Mediocre food. Chain food, so don’t expect anything special.
Nice patio.

My co-​worker and I lost the server lottery at lunch today. We were promptly greeted by a host and sat at a little two top in the bar area, but the prompt service ended there.
We waited for over five minutes just for someone to come by and offer us water. For that to finally happen, it took other servers noticing and coming over to cover for our waitress. One came to us while the other went to find her.
But hey, at least since it took ten minutes for her to show we already knew what we wanted to eat. We put in our orders and began the next longest wait ever. At this point the surrounding two tops were still empty. Every second of twenty minutes passed before I noticed that a guy sitting behind us, who hadn’t even been there when we ordered, had already ordered and been served his food. By now it was 12:40 (we got there around noon or so), so I had to go make the bartender aware of the situation. Told him we had jobs to get to (writing this in the car ride back — six minutes late for our 1 p.m. meeting) and he immediately got our food and notified the manager (implying that it had been sitting there waiting under a heat lamp).
The manager came over and apologized, and looked like she might offer us something on the house, but didn’t. Maybe we weren’t rude enough? Then she went on her way. All told our server filled our waters once and brought us a check. She came back and offered us dessert, said it would be on the house. However we didn’t have time for dessert so we passed.
You’d think after that you’d get a discount, a comp or something, but no, nothing at all. Horrible experience. Tipped 10% when I probably should’ve stiffed. Guess I’m not the asshole I used to be. Chalk it up to old age.

Rusty Bucket is always a great place for some good food! There aren’t many places to get peel-​n-​eat shrimp in Columbus, but this is one! They’re smothered in old bay (of course) and come with cocktail sauce and their creamy Texas sauce… YUM. Wednesday’s are Whiskey Wednesdays. Any bourbon or whiskey (all the way to tip top shelf) are $ 6! They also have a patio to enjoy the increasingly nice weather!

Had delicious French onion soup, a hummus appetizer and turkey club sandwich. I’d recommend all three of those, especially the hummus app.

I used to love the Rusty Bucket and considered it one of the restaurants you can always count on for good food and good service. I’m really disappointed to say the past two visits have not met my expectations. The food had some issues; a hard branch of kale in a salad and a hair in my dip. This past time my family and I sat at the bar and waited 15 minutes with empty glasses before we had to ask for refills ourselves. We’ve always had great service until now so that was disappointing. I just wanted to write in so that Rusty Bucket has a chance to get back to the level of service I’ve come to know from them. Would really like to go back one day…

Great experience! Went there with a daughter that has tons of allergies, Chef Jason and out awesome waitress Mary made a special meal for her that was in her words «amazing!!»! We will come here again. Only down side, it’s a bit spendy. Price aside, this place is wonderful!

Wanted to try a new restaurant out while I was down in Columbus shopping, thought this would be a fun place to try.
–Service was pretty good, nothing to complain about
–Lots of beer choices, prices seemed fair
–Ordered the Mac N Cheese dinner platter, very disappointed on quantity, this could be sold as a side platter. it was good though
–Reminds me of a TGIF, but with less of a deal.
I probably would not eat there again, wasn’t all impressed, but it wasn’t horrible

Not much that stands out here. I have not had terrible experiences, but certainly forgettable ones. Food is average to below average and service is about the same. I think they are confused on what type if restaurant they want to be as well… seems like a combination of a couple concepts. Drinks are nothing great, and weak.

Setting the stage. The Buckeyes had just gotten kicked to the curb by the Badgers in hoops. I had just finished 4.5 hours of interior labor and was heading home and was hungry. The PGA TOUR at Riviera CC/L.A. had 2 hours to go and I love golf. So The Rusty Bucket Corner Tavern on Lane Avenue captured me. And it was A-​OK!
I was greeted by not one but two hostesses, both perky and kind. I chose the bar — they went back to chit-​chatting.
The place was about half full due to the Buckeye loss. I sat at the bar and was greeted by Courtney who works part-​time, one day being Sunday; she was full of spirit and smiles. Nice! I had diet soda and ordered the Spinach Queso dip and the Ahi Tuna Wrap as an entrée. The queso was surprisingly delicious even though in my brain I was expecting to see a more white queso than the more cheesier melt with spinach. Spicey! The dip had nice heat to it both from the oven and with spices. I sat, read the Dispatch and dipped quietly.
Then came the Ahi Tuna Wrap with a side of cucumber tomato salad (that had goat cheese, I believe). This was a good meal; the wrap was bigger than planned so half went home with me. I enjoyed watching the PGA TOUR on TV (several options to watch; some too high up causing me to crane my neck — yes, nitpicking).
Maybe it’s me but to have a tuna wrap, dip and a diet soda… for $ 22,… pricing isn’t modest at this Rusty Bucket. The menu is diverse and I will return to try another entrée’ — I want to try their wings.

Let’s talk wings. They’re a little pricy at around $ 9 per pound. They’re a little small. In fact, I don’t think you actually get a full pound in the «pound». All that said, they are some of the tastiest wings I’ve ever had ever. Period. I can’t say anything bad about any of the flavors I tried: chipotle, sweet chili, Joe’s original, and sriracha. All of them were excellent, and prepared perfectly. Not breading like Roosters does it either!
Also our server, Lauren, was super friendly. Upon her recommendation, we also finished the night with the bread pudding cinnamon role thingy. Oh holy night, was that thing good. A soaked cinnamon roll with fresh whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. So simple, yet so damn good.
And to no fault of hers, the place was slow. Like reeeaaaaly slow. They definitely lose a star for that. But I will say, when the wing crave comes calling, I will be back!

There are a lot of wonderful independent bars in this city, and generally I would head to any one of them before going to a chain like this. That being said, I had a surprisingly good experience at The Rusty Bucket. My wife and I went with a few friends on a Wednesday night for the $ 5 whiskey special. There were plenty of seats at the bar, as they have built a nice, large wraparound bar. The bartenders were friendly and attentive. There was a surprisingly good beer list, and top shelf bourbons were on sale for $ 5, which is an offer I can’t refuse. The bar had a warm and friendly atmosphere. The room was large and accommodating, and there were lots of nice TVs, so this might actually be a solid place to watch a game. It was too cold for the patio, but that looked pretty nice too.
A lot better than I would have expected from a corporatey, chainy place. Don’t sell it short just because it isn’t terribly unique or original. It’s actually a pretty solid place.

We enjoy the ambiance and food at the Rusty Bucket. The patio is great — very relaxing and a nice place to enjoy a casual meal and drinks. The inside has the feel of a sports bar, with lots of TVs, making it a great place to catch a game.
I’ve visited this location at a couple of different times and days, and there is a distinct difference in experience. While the service I have received is always friendly and attentive, and the food good, the biggest issue I notice is the amount of time it takes for the food to arrive after ordering. I won’t go during a lunch hour any more, as it consistently has taken much too long for the food to arrive. That said, the one time when a group of us literally had to request the food to be boxed the moment it appeared on the table, the manager personally came over and apologized and gave us all of our meals free. That was much appreciated. On the other hand, we’ve had very good experiences with reasonable timing going in at different times, whether in a large group or just my husband and I.
Now, as to the food specifically — my husband particularly enjoys the burgers and the buffalo chicken sandwich, and the generous portion of fries that comes with these dishes. I’ve sampled several items off of the gluten-​free menu, all of which have been tasty, but my favorite is the Grilled BBQ Chicken plate. It comes with a large juicy piece of chicken slathered in a very tasty version of BBQ sauce, some creamy and completely sinful cheddar mashed potatoes, and skillet beans. Now, the first time I ordered this, I was not sure what to expect with «skillet beans.» I LOVE them. They are crisp tender green beans with slivers of onion and red pepper and piece of bacon. Amazing — talk about comfort food! My mouth is watering just describing the dish. I also love that I can get a Woodchuck here.