The Loose Wheel

After having a great experience at the Loose Wheel in Puyallup, we were excited about trying the Tacoma restaurant. Sadly, our visit there proved to be just so-so.First word of advice: Stay away from the french dip!! There was hardly enough meat on it to make a half sandwich (let alone a full one) and it tasted and felt microwaved - very chewy, overdone and rubbery. Not talking about gristle here - although it was present, that wasn t the problem - we re talking about just tough, chewy, rubbery meat. Left about 3/4ths of the sandwich on the plate. Seeing this, the waitress asked if we wanted a box. We answered no. Waited for her to ask if everything was all right - or if something was wrong, but she never did. The four of us were left shaking our heads. It was the general consensus that she simply didn t want to know - she wanted to remain oblivious. Now, the bad sandwich was not at all her fault - the restaurant simply needs to work on making a better sandwich - but we were disappointed that she didn t take the initiative to even ask. Watching the other servers, we definitely noticed the service is simply not as good as the Puyallup restaurant, so it s not like our waitress was necessarily off her game - it s just typical for the Tacoma restaurant. They are not nearly as eager for business as the other - and it shows.In general, the other orders in our group were very good and plenty! No problems there. The atmosphere is fun, open and comfortable. It will be a long, long while before we attempt the Tacoma location again. We have already made plans to go back to the Puyallup restaurant and plan on telling them that they run circles around their Tacoma sister store. To us, it all boiled down to the service - which needs a bit of a tune up.

Man this place is a great place to go , the meatloaf is fantastic! keep in mind though that you have to get their early to get an order of Meatloaf. It is unreal , there is some special ingredient in this that is so so good.! Service was decent on the nights I went there ,( usually for Monday Night Football ) parking is challenging and their steaks are cooked to order.