Houlihan's - Upper Arlington

Poor service

Meeting new neighbors

Do not spend your money here. 6 o'clock reservations, arrived at 5:50. Was told we could not be seated for 15-20 minutes due to being short staffed, though several tables were available. Understandable. We know and are patient with the impact Covid has. Asked if we could just order drinks from the bar while we wait. Reasonable, right? The hostess asked the bartender, she replied "no, I'm too busy". A bartender being too busy to make a drink seems absurd to me. But ok. We sit back down and wait. Another couple sits at the bar and is promptly taken care of. Drinks in hand within 3-4 minutes. We return to the bar, asked if now was a good time to order. Got 2 drinks, paid, back to the waiting area we go. 6:20 we're seated at our table outside. Not sure why we couldn't have sat at our table to begin with instead of crowding the hostess stand. Nonetheless, we took our seats, reviewed the menu. The nothing. No one greeted us to start us with water or anything. 10 minutes go by, 2 other tables get seated, 30 seconds later their server is at the table. Can't tell you how the food was as we left when we saw the other tables being served. Worst dining experience ever.

We have dined her a few times and have always LOVED the food. Tonight, our food took a long time and when it was served it was not good at all. Server was great, but the food was not worth $100.

Our servers were great and so was the food.

The food is excellent. It's too bad this time my daughter found a piece of hard plastic (looked to be a piece of a cup) in her burger. They replaced the burger, but I was a little surprised that the manager didn't come to talk to us about it, or offer not to charge us for it.

Food was not good. I have tasted microwave lunches that were better.

I love Houlihan’s. My daughter and I were there on a moderately busy evening, where there seemed to be several servers and managers around. Our server was very young and didn’t know a lot about the menu. Our salads came fairly soon, and within 2-3 minutes he was back, telling us our entrees hadn’t taken much time and could he bring them now. We agreed and ate them with our salads. My entree was the small portion of the scallops with asparagus risotto. The scallops were hot but the risotto was barely warm. We tried several times to get the server’s attention and gave up. When he finally came back and I told him, his response was “What do you want me to do?” I’m sure this was a sincere question! I said it was too late to replace the dish but please notify the chef. No one ever came to apologize, much less to offer to take it off my check. Very disappointing.

The Houlihan burger is one of the very best in the central Ohio area.

My lettuce had hints of brown. My steak was to be medium and came back well done. Told the server. Thought the manager would come and talk to us, however, they did not.

Experience was great. Business meeting; had requested a quite area which they were able to accommodate.

They got my order wrong, I did not want to wait for them to get me what I ordered so ate what they brought. Food was salty

Can't beat the Happy Hour at Houlihans. Great food and terrific wine prices.

This was our first night out since the pandemic started; we knew we wanted to go somewhere awesome. Everything was great, and do not regret picking them!

They need to change there cleaning g disinfectant it makes the table sticky.

I've always enjoyed eating at Houlihan's, but this time everything seemed so bland. The waitress, while working hard to make sure everything was fine, seemed to be a newbie and hence not well-versed on the menu options or drinks. We did get a 20% discount and thus was great. I had a drink that wasn't at all tasty and a bland bacon cheeseburger which was well cooked, though. The chips were great.

Great food, variety and service at a reasonable price

Chicken tenders are not good. Drinks weren’t bad

Waitress acted hurried but did make all requisite stops, asked about our food,etc. Result: good meal. In, ordered, ate, relaxed, paid and gone in 1hour. Congratulations

Our server Kelley did a great job- she checked on us in a timely manner, our food came out in an appropriate amount of time, and she refilled drinks without us asking her too. My husband and nephew LOVE the salted caramel butter cake. LOVE is an understatement. It did not disappoint. The 9 year old nephew/burger guru gave his KC BBQ burger a big thumbs up and said, "Wow, this is juicy!" We do enjoy the outdoor seating because you do have options of sun and shade.

Good food but a couple noticeable issues. The floor and tables were extremely sticky. I ordered fish tacos but received one taco - the server didn't clarify there was a lunch version with one taco for $11.95 rather than $12.95 for the dinner portion I saw on the menu.

We are a group of retired nurses who meet once a month for dinner. This was our first time at Houlihan’s. Everyone ordered from the “fixed” menu and we were all pleased. All three courses were wonderful and you can’t beat the price!

I had the Rangoon Chicken, from their special menu items, and it was fantastic! I hope they add this to their permanent menu because it's now one of my new favorites

Love the fish and chips.

Food was outstanding! Service was great (even though they were short staffed).

The carpet is very sticky to walk on. Gave us an unclean feeling.
Food just okay. Has gone down from my last visit.

This was our first visit…we’ll be back!

Nice atmosphere. The food and the portions of food were very good in the sense that we were not over-fed. A little disconnect in the kitchen made the service slow but management made up for it by comping an appetizer. Would definitely go back.

It was especially great because I was able to get a reservation at 6:00! In the past couple weeks the reservation times were either 3:45 or 7:45. So, we went someplace else for dinner! Our visit Saturday at 6:00 was wonderful. The Hostess was cheery and very accommodating! Noah, our Server was right at our table to take a drink order. He was very nice , and did a great job for us! The food was wonderful, as always! We enjoyed our time at Houlihan's!

A great neighborhood place with a kitchen run very well by Ryan

I am upset that I don't think to come here more often. I received a free entree email for my birthday, which is a great excuse to come back. The food is always delicious and they have some really unique items. Only critique is that the floor was sticky. I thought it was just my shoes, but my daughter said the same thing. The carpet has a weird stickiness to it, although it's certainly not enough to prevent me from coming back.

Food was very good, servers nice and professional, great atmosphere. However, the time to get our food was very long. Ordered from the price fixed menu. 30 minutes between courses. We arrive at 5:30... didn't get to dessert portion until almost 7:30. Not good. Would recommend, but only if you have a lot of time.

Always a great meal in a nicely designed restaurant. I love their house salad.

The air conditioning wasn’t working. I feel that they should have informed us before seating us so we had an option to leave without feeling awkward. Maybe even a sign on the door. Otherwise everything was great.

We were getting our puppy groomed at 2:00 at The Groomery a short walk from Hou's, so decided to do "Dunch" while we waited for her. We were warmly greeted and taken to the patio table we requested and given the special "Date Night " menu as well as the Happy Hour menu which was quite a surprise! Victoria, our regular server, was off. We quickly realized her "replacement" Jasmine, was a rich blessing! We had ordered the Spinach Dip appetizer before realizing we would order from the "Date Night" menu that included an appetizer. Since they were out of the "Creamy Elote Dip" on the Date Night menu, Jasmine asked her manager if he would "substitute" the Spinach Dip and he agreed! We enjoyed a long, lazy Sunday afternoon at Houlihan's - no rush, no fuss - until our Mimi was ready at the Groomery!

The service was very slow and they were out of a lot of things on the menue. The food was just Mediocre

Definitely our worst experience at Houlihan’s in the past several years. It was about 80 degrees inside the restaurant for starters. The service was unbelievably slow, unless you were ordering and picking up take out. Those customers were obviously the priority, not customers like us, who made a reservation to eat in the establishment.

If you’re understaffed, which is a common excuse these days, then stop taking carry out orders and stop accepting walk ins. Focus on the customers who made a commitment and gave you the opportunity to staff accordingly, not the ones who just want food in a bag or walk in on a Saturday evening and take away the experience for the customers who made a reservation days earlier!

We never saw anyone from management, which I’m sure is the root of the problems.

STAY AWAY!

Air conditioning not working
Drinks took a long time. Beer glass no longer frosted
Wrap tortilla was hard.

As always, the food was very good but the service was terrible. We received our main course before the appetizer. Timing was clearly off. The server placed all the blame on the kitchen but I truly believe that the server was the one at fault. I wish that she would have owned up to it. The manager never even came to our table for follow up. Very disappointed.

This was the worst dining experience I’ve had and won’t be back. The dinner was supposed to be in celebration of my daughter and her best friend graduating high school. When we arrived at the restaurant at 430 it was blazing hot inside and it was only after we were seated and complained multiple times of how hot it was that the AC was broken. That would’ve been nice to know before we even got to the restaurant. When I tried to signal someone from the kitchen (of which they were all standing around talking otherwise I would’ve left them alone) to help us move they all just stared at me. Half the table order their appetizers first while the other half ordered appetizers and the main course at the same time, which was fine. The problem was the waitress never came back in a timely manner to take the main course orders for the rest of the table. Most of the table was done eating all their food before the last three of us even had our order taken for a the main course. I was so frustrated at this point because it was about 6 o’clock and we’re still waiting for our food. So it’s still hot in the restaurant, some of us are still hungry and it’s getting late we just want to go at this point. when we finally get our orders taken for a main course I also asked for to go containers so we can basically just get our food and leave. When we get our to- go containers my daughter tries to put her food in her container which leaks all over her pants because the containers don’t close properly. I didn’t realize this at first until she hands me her food and asked if I can help her put her food in her container. I get her food in her container and put it in the bag and noticed that the bag is leaking, now onto my white pants. Now I’m furious. I asked for another container after I explain the situation and the waitress brings the same type of container which leaks again. I had to ask for a completely different container so that my food wouldn’t leak again. terrible service overall.