The Other Place

A friend had recommended so we went to the Waterloo location. Walk in and there were 3 girls just standing there, didn't say hi, welcome and barely noticed us. I had to say something to get one of them to seat us. Place was loud because it nothing more than a large open room. Waitress took our drink order and came back 5 minutes later with the drinks which was fine, but they really weren't very busy. Their pizza is supposed to be over the top so that's what we ordered. It took 30 minutes which was a little long, but hey its great pizza right? Uh not do much. The crust was so tough you had to use a knife to cut it. Not sure if it's normally that bad or not but we will not be returning to find out...

The best lasagna in town. Never had it with ham,but that's what makes it delicious. The people who work there are friendly and helpful. The last time I was there, a group of people were in a party like section and were very loud. Even the help had a hard time hearing the other customers. Should have a separate room for parties.

First off, I would like to state that I normally do not do reviews to this extent, but “The Other Place” certainly requires one. I have been in restaurant management for over 20 years, so I know that upper management feeds off of these reviews to improve operations, as I encounter my own guest comments on a daily basis, good or bad. This may have been just an off night for this location, which happens but not to this extent. I apologize if my review is long winded. I traveled with my family from the East Coast (1200 miles) to celebrate the Christmas holiday with other family members. On our last night in Waterloo Iowa, we all decided to go out for a nice dinner (or so we thought) at The Other Place. After being seated, it took nearly 15-20 minutes to place a drink order. Once we were finally greeted for our beverage order, we also placed our food order at the same time (mainly apps and a couple of sandwiches) which was a little unusual, but we were given ample time to review the menu. Anyways, after another 15 minutes or so, my sister asked the manager if we could at least get some water for my kids while we graciously waited. By this time, some 30-40 minutes later, our party of 7 was getting a little agitated, like a lot of customers that I was observing around us. We finally received our drinks as another party of 30-40 people were being seated. Another 20-30 minutes went by (over an hour at this point) and we finally received 2 of the 7 items that we had ordered and we were all like great our food is finally ready or so we thought. Then suddenly a wave of food was being brought out to the large group that I had mentioned previously, which was sat a good 30 minutes after all of us. This was the last straw for us and my sister went up to the manager (whom was oblivious as to what was going on with his business) to find out what was going on. He could not even muster up a response or any type of excuse for us, which is very disappointing. We all got up and walked out at that point. We all came hungry and left hungry. My impression was that I thought this was a full service establishment and not a self-service one. We were not expecting the hour plus wait for service or we would have phoned in our orders or brought our own beverages and some playing cards to pass the time. I would like to recommend Subway over this establishment for anyone looking for good service and food. We were all greeted with a friendly “welcome to Subway”, served promptly with fresh, good food and we were even thanked for our business. This may not be the ideal place to have a nice family dinner, but at least the service was top notch!

Awesome as always! Thank you OP for accommodating all our needs even though it meant totally rearranging the tables!

Pleasant comfortable ambiance, great service and amazing food!