Hook & Ladder Restaurant

Unfortunately — the entire family doesn’t have one good thing to say about any food item we received.
The food took almost an hour to come out and the restaurant was DEAD! So there is no excuse. My daughter’s chicken sliders were cold, and had puny pieces of chicken.
My other daughter’s meal had rubbery chicken and the vegetables were terrible.
My sliders had no flavor and were dry.
The fry plate was a joke, not even a kid’s portion.
Didn’t get our waters refilled till the end of our meal.
Terrible experience. Not coming back.

I enjoy coming here for beer and wings. A lot of my friends and family come here to watch football or just after work to wind down. It’s a very fun and comfortable atmosphere. The people who work here have great customer service skills and they seem to really value their guests which I love. One day me and my boyfriend decided to eat in the resutrant portion of the resutrant. I was surprised to see not many people do but we just wanted a nice meal before the movies. I ordered the steak and mashed potatoes. My boyfriend had chicken tenders and fries. It was very good and the cook even came to our table and spoke to us a bit. Told us he went to culinary school and cooking is his passion and he is very happy we decided to dine in. We ordered a cheese cake and tried his mud pie I think it was called. Something he came up with himself. It was fantastic! I really love this place.

Went here for a quick lunch with a co-​worker on our way back into town.
Should have just gone to our usual places, Sorella or Dish.
All I have to say about this experience… found a FLY in my Turkey Sandwich.
And the Manager on duty literally said, «I have no words»…
Well you may want to find some because I left sick to my stomach for the rest of the afternoon.
Never again.

My boyfriend and I went to Hook & Ladder for lunch late Sunday afternoon. We were skeptical after seeing some negative reviews online, but I thought it was great! Aside from several of the booths being ripped, I loved the Firefighter décor. The Chilli was some of the best I ever had! Staff is friendly as well. The chef came out to see how everything was as well. We will definitely be back!

When you first arrive:
The place has a classic Pub feel with spacious tables and ample sitting. There is normally never a wait list to sit down.
Food:
I came here solely for the jumbo wings. They have 50 cent wing night on Thursday which is a plus! The wings are hit or miss in my opinion. I’ve been here multiple times and sometimes the wings are delicious and sometimes they are too fatty or dry.
The best thing about Hook and Ladder is that they offer a variety of wing flavors such as jack daniels, honey mustard, sweet chili, teriyaki, bbq, parmesan herb and various levels of buffalo sauce. You can split wing orders if you are feeling adventurous.
Service:
The bartender is friendly but not attentive to you at all. He gets distracted by his friends that visit him and the regulars that he knows. The waitress is extremely nice but forgetful so don’t be too surprised if someone in your party gets their order messed up or she forgets something.
Drinks:
The rest of the beers are standard beers that you would typically find in a Pub. They have Monday — Friday happy hour specials that include $ 3.00 BUD and BUD LIGHT DRAFTS; $ 5.00 ALL HOUSE WINES.
Overall:
This is a very casual place where you can go to watch a football game with a large group or solo. The quality of the food is too inconsistent as well as the service but the Thursday 50 cent wing night special makes up for it.

We ordered chicken tenders and spinach artichoke dip but they gave us only a few chips for our dip and no dipping sauce for the tenders. The bar tender must have been new because he was having a very hard time keeping up with the not too large crowd. Yummy food and cool vibe otherwise.

The final verdict is still out on Hook & Ladder. I think there is great potential here and I give them credit for even existing in this location. I went with a large group for their Thursday wing special. The server was very overwhelmed and there were a number of mistakes with our order. We watched as our wings sat in the window of the open kitchen, losing their crunch. Most of the sauces seemed fine but it’s hard to judge when the wing texture is so far off the mark. One of the correction orders with the Sweet Chili sauce did make it to our table very quickly and I had 2 wings from that order. They were very good, great flavor, perfectly cooked. I was also impressed by their Garlic Parm dry rub wings; served with marinara sauce instead of Blue Cheese very original. They have great domestic beer and drinks specials nightly. I plan on returning with a smaller group soon and will post an updated review.

So I’m waiting to be seated and a lady finally comes up to me after 10 mins like what are u doing??? So I pointed at the sign that says «wait to be seated». Like ok that’s a lil rude but ok… I ask to be seated at the bar because nobody was in there at the time… A waitress comes over I tell her my drink and food order right away and immediately she rings me up… Which I thought was weird Cus this isn’t McDonald’s! So I pay I wait for like 30 WHOLE mins for my food all the while more people start filing into the bar area… So as I wait for my food I watch the waitress take their orders and never once rang them up… She ‘s being courteous asking if they need any silverware blah blah blah while I sit with just my beer and no silverware in front of me and my food is gonna come out literally any minute. Another weird thing but I didn’t mind it because I used to come here a lot before they changed owners… Anywho my food rung up at 15.46… I NEVER GOT MY CHANGE!!! Mind u I paid with a 20 $…it’s not that serious but I asked twice ya know! Never again I feel like I’ve given this place too many chances… I miss their build your own pasta for 15 $ THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKED!!! highly disappointed!!! Smh!!!

The food here is consistently poor. It has gotten to the point where I will avoid going here even if it is under and invite and I won’t be paying.
Sure the waitstaff is about average, friendly enough and the décor/​theme of the restaurant (firefighters) is creative but the fact is these positive aspects are way overshadowed by the complete lack of any culinary competence.
⁰⁄₁₀ would not eat again.

Got there around noon. Place was empty, didn’t even see any employees. I wasn’t even sure it was open, but the door was unlocked. Went next door to Ashley’s instead.

I went here last week with three friends because I had a Groupon. We were the only people in the bar, we ordered cocktails to start; two of my friends ordered draft beers which tasted flat, I wonder if the taps are properly maintained. The food was bad… just bad, we ordered chicken nachos and a sandwich with sweet potato fries. The sweet potato fries were good, but other than that every thing else ate tasted like it was frozen food reheated in a microwave, dry, bland and flavorless.
All in all the place had potential, the theme is nice and the place itself was nice, but it has a lot to be desired.

I came here for a birthday party. The place looked pretty cool with the whole Fire Fighter theme. I ordered their buffalo chicken wrap. The chicken was overly cooked and too salty. The sauce and everything in it was just not the best flavor. The fries, they were soggy. I thought this place was going to be better than what I thought with the way the aesthetics and location were. The drinks they made were kind of weak. I ordered a Martini then a cranberry and vodka. Yeah I don’t feel the need to come back here.

I REALLY wanted to like this place. The bar side was more so what i expected. wood, brass. Exactly what you would expect in let’s say an episode of Rescue Me or Third Watch. The restaurant side had the ambience and furniture of a hospital cafeteria. Booo. The service was fine. the food, super inexpensive. But the food? I ordered the grilled cheese and instead of being a cheesy gooey mess it actually cut the roof of my mouth. It was a straight up highschool cafeteria grilled cheese (circa 1980). The fries almost seemed like they were batter dipped then fried and also rough on the roof of your mouth. The worst part was I forgot to use My Living Social deal.
So as not to waste my Living Social deal I cohersed my cowrokers to attend a Happy Hour there. This was on a Thursday night and there were literally 3 people working. The cook, the bartender and waitress. We were going to sit at a table (there were 7 of us) but there was no way that would have worked out. we would never get any drinks. So we saddled up the bar and managed to get 2 drinks a piece. Used my Living Social Deal per my bosses delight ($ 30 off), as he paid for the HH.
Sorry Hook and Ladder, you take advantage of your bar situation, expand it… upgrade your restaurant furniture to wood tables, wood floors in the restaurant and expand the bar area… and maybe cut the food back to just burgers. It has potential but right now it’s a mess and needs a serious overhaul. This place needs Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue in a serious way.

I first heard of Hook & Ladder when they were serving up their pulled pork at the Mark Twain House Oktoberfest event. The guy who was there representing the restaurant said they are much better now than the reputation that precedes them and encouraged us to visit. I’m not sure what that means about how they were known before, but when a LivingSocial deal came up for Hook & Ladder, my boyfriend happily grabbed one.
As some reviewers have pointed out, there is free parking in the back, which makes this place a more convenient place to visit in downtown Hartford. The parking lot is a little tough to find if you don’t know where you’re going, but we found it when we turned onto the street behind the Hook & Ladder. Once we got inside, we noticed the place was pretty empty, but there was a small crowd at the bar, and a few tables with people. As one person who got to the bar pointed out, it’s pretty well lit inside, which is unusual, but refreshing for a bar. You can actually see the people you’re with, and with little to no music in the background, you can hear them talk, too. There’s a good number of beers on tap with your usual Bud and Coors, but also Dogfish Head and a few house beers — Sparky’s IPA and Sparky’s Red. (There’s a fire house theme here, and Sparky is the fire dog.) The Red kicked while we were there, but we were able to try the IPA, which wasn’t bad.
For food, we started with the pulled pork nachos and ordered a couple of burgers. The nachos were decent and had a good amount of pulled pork, cheese, and jalapenos. Our burgers were fine too. Mine was topped with blue cheese and some kind of house seasoning, and it was a good, solid burger. Overall, it was an A-​OK place to grab some beers and hang out.

I really wanted to like Hook and Ladder. I was hoping for a good, local family friendly restaurant. We had the Living Social deal so luckily we didn’t pay full price for our bad experience. It was our server’s second day and she was still unfamiliar with the menu. It also might have been her first serving job ever, didn’t seem experienced overall but she tried to make up for that with her pleasant demeanor.
We order salads; nachos; two kids meals (one hamburger and one mac & cheese); a steak and cheese and grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. I also ordered ginger ale which I immediately sent back, it had an awful taste. My husband and I both wanted Fish & Chips but they were out. It was not a busy day, in fact we were only ones there at first. Only one other family came in.
As far as the food, the nachos were ok, but not too hot. The food took a long time to be made despite not being busy. Both my daughter and I sent back our food. She sent her mac & cheese and exchanged it for chicken tenders, which she ate. My son’s burger was good and husband’s steak and cheese was so-​so. My grilled cheese was awful. The bread was somehow greasy and dry and same time. The bacon and cheese also weren’t very good, but bread was worst part. I didn’t order anything else because at that point I just wanted to leave. I might have given this one star if the waitress wasn’t so apologetic, I almost felt bad for her.

Had a livingsocial deal. Wasn’t anything impressive. Ordered my burger med rare, it came very well done. It was still juicy, and seemed like high quality meat. Salad was ok. My wife got the steak and cheese. She thought it was nothing special either. It was supposed to come with au jus, which was missing. If a place can’t even make a burger correctly, I won’t be back.

Despite Unilocal revoking my 2012 Elite status because I was too busy to post, I still believe in the cause… so here I am back at it!
I met someone here for lunch a few weeks ago and was excited to try a new downtown spot that I did not even know about. Plus firefighter themes are awesome, right?
I checked Unilocal for recommendations and went with their house mac ‘n cheese. It was bland and unfinishable (not a word, I know) until I soaked the leftovers in hot sauce at home.
Service was slow. View was weak. I am not really planning on going back.

Saw a deal on livingsocial so decided to give this place a try.
Thanks to a tip I saw on Unilocal we looked for the parking lot around the back. If it wasn’t for the tip we would’ve missed the lot. There was lots of parking in the back which was great.
We entered the restaurant and it was pretty nice. Lots of exposed brick. Looked clean and decorated with lots of fire house memorabilia.
The waitress came over quickly and offered us our choice of seats in the bar area vs. restaurant. We chose a booth in the restaurant.
We ordered fried pickles as an appetizer with the pulled pork Nachoes and Black and blur burger as entrees. The pickles were verryyyy greasy. The burger was good, but came with Gorgonzola instead of blue cheese as it said in the menu. The Nachoes were very good! Nice and Cheesy and the pulled pork was tasty with a hint of sweetness.
Our server kept checking on us which was a plus.
All in all a decent meal.

Tried this while entertaining some places for a catering event I had to book.
Service was friendly and prompt.
The fried pickles were good, but I ordered the house dog and it was just okay. I’ll probably go back and try the bacon wrapped meatloaf someday and will update my review at that point.

I guess I’m the exception to some of the reviews of this place– really good happy hour and was pretty happy with the food/​drinks!
You can’t expect too much — if you do you will be let down. Its pretty simple and it is what it is. That said I think its a great value for the price and worth at least a drink.
I would say the service is hit and miss. But honestly I didn’t really stress me out — so if that’s an issue (which is fair) — then you may not want to come here.
I still think 4 starts is appropriate given the price and value.