107 State

Experience was OK. This is an overrated bar. With barfood. Very limited menu.

Not bad for a football weekend (choices are limited).
Wish they knew better how to make a real Old Fashioned (not Wisconsin-style :).
Our meals were fine, not special.

As long as you recognize that this is basically a bar, you will not be too disappointed. There is a limited menu - only a few items in each category (appetizer, salad, entree, etc.) and there was no dessert listing. Our entrees were good - I had the fish fry and my wife had the chicken entree. The size was just right - not too small but not a large portion either. I thought the wine that we purchased was a bit on the high side price-wise, and we were a bit taken aback when we asked for coffee and they said that they could put a pot on if we wanted (we declined. Remember, it is a bar...). Our booth was where the bar bumped out a bit so patrons at the bar were pretty close to us with only room for one person passing by to move between us at a time. The folks sitting there were not noisy so that was not a problem for us this time. Our service was was fine although a comment by the hostess that she could seat us right away (we were 10 minutes early for our reservation) but that the service might be slower was somewhat perplexing since the dozen or so tables were never completely filled. I would certainly recommend it to a friend, but not for a fine dining experience.

We will try it again, but the pork chop was inedible (hard as a rock) almost impossible to cut. It was also so spiced that two of us in or party of 7 took one bite and decided that we couldn't eat another bite!! Our mouths were on fire!! They must have changed the recipe, because one of our party had recommended it to us! She said it didn't even resemble the pork she had enjoyed ! They brought the two of us each a 1/2 order of the chicken entree, because we weren't all that hungry which was just fine, but the burning in my mouth lasted until we were in the Overture Center Concert Hall. I grew up in Madison. It is my home town. I worked at Olson's Dress shop from my Junior year in High School (Thursday evenings and Saturdays). The address was 105 State Street. I worked my way through the UW working summers there until I started working in touring Theater Musicals. I was able to graduate from UW with ZERO debt! That shows you how old I am. I love State Street. I worked "next door" to 107 State St. for years. . . MANY years ago. I think that is why we wanted to go with 5 friends before the MSO Concert last Friday. The staff were very hospitable. They were very sorry about our awful pork chops! They did their best! Not their fault! THE MUSIC WAS WAY TOO LOUD . . . Maybe I won't want to go back after all. We like Cento a lot . . . hey! We like Nick's for comfort food sometimes! . . . we go to Overture Center a lot. We would try 107 again. . . maybe?!

It was a busy night but service was terrible. Waited over 1.5 hours for an appetizer. No subsequent drink orders take.

I appreciated that the server asked if we were there for a show so she could mark the ticket to ensure we had our food out in enough time to eat and get to the theater. We never had to ask for refills of water, there was someone going around filling it up regularly.

We stopped in for dinner before a theater date. The drinks we ordered came quickly and were fine. We did not order appetizers. We waited, and waited, but our entrees did not arrive. The server said they'd be up "in a few minutes". After 45 minutes they finally arrived so we had about 15 minutes to eat before we had to leave. No apologies for the slow service. The food was just okay (pork and chicken). The mashed potatoes were boring and tasted like they had come out of a box. The arugula salad had a nice citrus-y dressing. No time for dessert (cheesecake was all that was offered) obviously. We won't be back.