Down Under Pub, Durham, North Carolina Restaurant Details

Food:

The bar has a great new owner and the atmosphere is great. They have open mike nite on Wednesdays and most Fridays have a great local band. Everyone gets personal service and they remember you when you come back again! It has something for everyone, and it is a great place just to hang. There are drink specials everyday. Come in and see for yourself

Food:

I've been to this place a few times on the weekend before because of it's convenient location, relaxed atmosphere and above-average bar food.

I made the mistake of going back there one night this week. I suppose we picked a bad time - the bartender was ending her shift and was busy closing out a bunch of tabs, and we were just looking for some quick drinks and meals.

I didn't mind how long it took for her to take our orders; like I said, she was busy and it was a bit crowded. Once we did order our food, I found it a bit strange that it took so long for our them to come out. It's a pretty small place, and we were the only ones who were ordering food.

When we finally did get our meals - chicken strips for me, potato skins for my girlfriend - there was something off from the start. Her skins, which she's ordered here before and have contained nothing more than cheese and bacon, were smothered with bits of raw onions. We had somewhere to be, and didn't have the apparently requisite 20 minutes it took for the chef to prepare potato skins, so I suggested she either get her money back or pick out the onions.

My chicken strips, which I'd asked to be tossed in the Jamaican jerk, looked a little off, and were a bit cold to the touch. I figured the cook had made mine first and let them sit off to the side while he prepared the potato skins. Not caring that much, I took a bite.

Because the exterior was covered in sauce, I don't know what it looked like. Biting into it, I couldn't help but gag. Had I been served some weird, hybrid, chicken courdon bleu version of their chicken strips by mistake? What was that weird, gummy texture in the middle of the strip?

Raw, uncooked chicken. I instinctively spit it out and showed it to the bartender. She flipped out, apologized profusely and brought it back to the kitchen, yelling at the cook.

He didn't seem to care, so she kept apologizing and refunded the $5.25 it had cost.

My girlfriend, realizing that the chef who'd managed to serve RAW chicken strips and inexplicably added onions to her order, tried to take hers back to the kitchen. After a brief exchange with the cook (I'm not sure what was said; I was busy talking to the bartender) he cursed her out and told her to beat it.

I was really just sort of shocked by the whole thing; I've had bad service before, but I've never been served raw, potentially dangerous food before. The bartender did all she could; I got the feeling that it was just her and the cook working there that night.

Having worked in restaurants before, I realize mistakes are made and that there's no right way to respond to an error as serious as was made that night. That's fine; I didn't kick and scream, I didn't demand the number of the owner or call the health inspector. I accepted my refund (my girlfriend ended up getting one too) and left.

Looking back, that was definitely a mistake. The thing is, I almost felt sorry for the bartender who was leaving, because she was genuinely apologetic and appalled at the raw chicken (her replacement didn't seem to care what had happened one way or the other) and I really didn't know how to react at the time.

But what's really stuck with me, and the only reason I've bothered writing this up is...how on earth do you serve raw chicken strips? Like I said... I've worked in restaurants before; nine times out of ten all you have to do is toss the pre-cut, uncooked strips into some batter, throw them into the fryer and wait for them to float to the top. It's pretty much the hardest order in the world to screw up.

The fact that the cook here did screw up, and not only didn't come out to personally apologize but instead got into an argument over the potato skins speaks incredibly poorly of the sort of employees the owner chooses to keep on staff.

I will never, ever step foot in this place again.I hope the cook is fired and somehow gets black-listed from ever working in a kitchen again. Disgusting.

Food:

This is probably one of the more diverse bars in the area. Being a DC native, I always felt so uncomfortable in the Raleigh-Durham bars. It's either drunken fools with anger problems or college students. This bar is a perfect mixture of everything inbetween. Mostly just a mature professional crowd of all ages looking to come together for a drink. For service, Molly and Andrew make the pub worth coming to with their great service and winning personality! For food, George's cooking was never a let down and is always tasty! The only draw back is the random homless men in the side parking lot begging for money, but that's easily solved by just parking across the street in the secured lot.

Food:

Announcing the new Down Under Pub -- we have drink specials 7 days a week, a new menu that ranges from wings to big salads, and music events every month! Come see for yourself!