32 top. One server

Our group had reservations. 7:00. Tumbleweed river road. 32 top. 1 server. Haven't been here in 10 years. Probably be another 10:-)

You might be the first person to list service as a reason for not returning to tumbleweed.

Atrocious food has always been my reason.

No doubt that's the only way a server can make money there.

She really did a good job - considering. We never saw a manager. It was all she could do to take the drink orders, deliver drinks, then take the food order. Several of us would have liked a second drink but that never happened. I ordered a taco salad that was mostly shredded lettuce with big chips in it placed on two really big thick taco shells. My husband's chimi was closer to the size of a enchilada.
The man who organized it was so disappointed and we had to tell him it wasn't his fault. He had stopped in at 5:00 to verify since we would all be close by at the rowing house then stroll over to the Weed at 7:00.
Again, she did a really good job with her limited resources. One interesting note, she did not add a gratuity to the separate checks. We felt she deserved at least the 18% for the situation. We tipped $6 on $31+, rounding up.
Service is HUGE. Doesn't matter how good the food and drinks are, if you can't get waited on. We anticipated this not be a great 'dining' experience but more of a opportunity to chat with fellow Cardinal fans.

I've had the same experience at that location. Waited 30 minutes to have our order taken and another hour after that to get our food, with a party of about 10 or 12.

The service at the River Road location is embarrassing. We once watched our order travel to 3 other tables across the body of the restaurant before arriving at our table. That was our last attempt to eat there.

In defense of the servers (a little bit), Tumbleweed has one of the WORST POS systems in the industry that I have seen. Overly complicated, difficult to navigate and unforgiving. The servers are not set up to succeed in the first place. You'd have to be top notch just to survive the POS.

You might be the first person to list service as a reason for not returning to tumbleweed.

Atrocious food has always been my reason.

Lol.
I never understood the draw ( except the river location). I gamely tried it as a " local" when I moved here and never got it.
Deb

The last time I was there was 3 years ago. It was for my sons birthday and it also happened to be fathers last meal at a restaurant. What a bummer that was his last dinning experience before he died. The service was so bad and the food terrible. We ordered apps and after we had tried to eat them we wanted the left overs gone. I told the server that we were finished with the apps and she said okay but left the three platters on the table. Out main course came and I again told the food runner to please remove the apps as we were finished with them. He kind of looked at me like I was crazy and then left without taking the apps. Oh well. We finished our meal and the server asked if we wanted anything else. We ordered a few more drinks and wanted to just hang out and talk. They left our dishes on the table. I asked the server to please remove the plates. She disappeared. Flies were starting to congregate, as we were outside. I finally went to the manager and told her that we wanted to hang out for a few and enjoy our adult beverages, and could she please send a busser out to remove our dishes. She said that it was their policy to remove plates after the guest had left. I pointed out that this was not acceptable to us and that we really need some time at a clean table to finish our drinks. About 5 min later two burley guys showed up with tubs and did a big song and dance about us being at the table while they cleaned. We were obviously in their way and they banged and clanged and moaned and groaned. I finally told them to leave it. We left never to return.

Horrible. Awful.

I can look past many miscues and missteps, but sugary sweet salsa I will not abide.

So I was a manager for Tumbleweed 10 or so years ago.

I have nothing positive to say about this company. Every single negative thing you can think of in regard to restaurants existed there. Some examples...

Most of the stores were older and badly maintained. Broken equipment, years of poor cleaning habits and dilapidated structures were the norm.

The kitchens were (and possibly still are) a sea of steam tables and microwaves. EVERYTHING except dry goods and produce came in vacuum packed or frozen. The only decent employees you could keep longer than 3 or 4 months were too dumb to realize they could make $2 an hour more across the street.

I felt worse for the servers. They had to deal with "kids eat free" twice a week and AYCE ribs and chicken on Wednesdays. I'm sure you can imagine what kind of clientele that brought in. (Yes, even worse than normal, lol). I would check them out at night and wonder how they paid their bills on the abysmal money they were making. No... increased traffic does not equal more money in these situations. My main job became making sure they weren't stealing.

As you can imagine, these... "challenges" are more than any experienced restaurant manager wants to take on. I quickly lost respect for the job and might (and by might I mean absolutely) deserved to get fired after taking way too many liberties with after hours drinking and the female staff.

I know we all have fond memories of what Tumbleweed used to be in the 80's but that company is gone. Now you have reheated food, desperate employees, negligent management and a citywide wonder on how this company manages to find new investors every time they are on the verge of closing for good.

Wow. I worked at the original one for 1 year. Lots of stories. Hope a better local restaurant can move in there sooner than later.

Heck, I had forgotten Tumbleweed even existed! I guess that's a good thing

I was the opening GM at the one in Dupont in 1980. I had met George Keller a yr or 2 before. He wanted to open another location and I was living in Lexington, so he had me looking for a location there. I told him he would be better opening another one in Louisville, so we opened Dupont.
When George left, it went downhill fast. The menu got so out of wack, ribs, steakes, chicken, seafood,it lost it's identity. I still have occasional contact with George.

My ex worked for Tumbleweed for years. I think they went downhill fast after they went public with their stock and had shareholders they were "beholdin' " to.

after they went public

I was one of the dummies who bought the stock at $10 a share and lost it all when they went back to private. I was never a big fan, but I had lots of friends who liked it or worked there, and thought it'd be cool have a stake.