Loose Wheel - Tacoma, WA

We went with our neighbors to Olympia to pick up some bare root plants for our yard and pond area. Our neighbors recommended that we go to to the Loose Wheel off 6th street by the Narrows bridge in Tacoma for lunch. We walked in and the place was virtually empty at lunch time on a Sunday. The interior was impressive, bright, clean, with lots of shiny tables, both table height and bar height. At one end is a pool table and at the opposite end is a whole wall of pull tabs with a long bar on the back wall in between. The menu had a large variety of items from which to choose. The server was cheerful and friendly.  She took our orders and said our appetizers would be out in a few minutes. .

Fifteen to twenty minutes passed before our appetizers arrived. Our neighbors commented that the wait was unusual. We ordered deep fired pickles to start. They were crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside and had a bit of a bite and spice. We dipped them in their special ranch sauce. I would rate them a 9 out of 10. I ordered chicken and Jo Jo's and the other three in the party ordered hamburgers.

We finished our appetizers and were waiting for our main lunch. I had a good view of the kitchen where I could see the cook working. He was busy eating something and then scratched his nose and face with his gloved hands. The waitress somehow forgot that we were in the bar and ignored us for quite a while. Finally she came over and asked if we would like refills of our ice tea. She should have been automatically coming by and offering to fill up our ice tea instead of taking so long, asking and then going to get the ice tea pitcher. Again our companions comment that this was very unusual.

Finally lunch arrived. The food was hot and had a good presentation. We had requested no tomatoes on one of the burgers and the waitress took it back to the kitchen to have the tomato removed. One of the burgers also had a fried egg that was suppose to be over easy but looked like sunny side up HARD.

My chicken and Jo Jo's were good, crispy and well done. A 7 out of 10. Everyone else had no complaints.

Overall the food was a 7, Service a 3 with an overall rating of a 6. Definitely would like to give it another try, if only for the fried pickles and hope the service would be better.