Had we been thinking about it, Monday night was probably not the best night to check out Third Street Aleworks (610 Third Street, Santa Rosa) seeing as it is football season. Located in the old Good Earth restaurant building (shows you how long ago I lived in Sonoma County), Third Street Aleworks is a spacious, two-story bar/restaurant/brewery. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was the ear-splitting shrieks of small children (-35,000) that reverberated through my skull before landing, like an icepick, into the nerves behind my left eye. I can’t think of anyone who looks for the shrill screeching of other people’s crotch demons when picking out a dining establishment so even though “family-friendly” might not be a bad thing in general (after all, as much as I would prefer it, you can’t force people with small children to stay home for 6-8 years), providing an atmosphere where it’s okay for children to literally run, screaming through a maze of tables guarantees I will not be back. After all, Third Street Aleworks isn’t Chuck E Cheese’s (or is it?).

We were sat upstairs, between dueling groups of grown men in football jerseys screaming at televisions suspended over the tables and children wielding pool cues. But it’s Monday Night football, so that’s to be expected. After about 15 minutes, I decided to start timing how much longer it would take the waitress, who walked by our table no less than six times, to notice that we were there. Another 8 minutes later, she decided to pop round and check in.

“Oh!” she said, surprised, as if we had just pulled off some incredible magic trick by suddenly appearing at a table in her station. “Did you want to order something?”

I’m not sure what gave it away, the empty table sprawled before us? The stack of menus on our table? Perhaps she thought we had just been walking by and gotten tired, so we decided to walk into the restaurant and ask for table so we could rest and come in from the cold, perhaps to do some meditation or to catch up on some light menu reading (-5,000).

Brewery = beer. I understand this but usually there is a cider of some kind that I can enjoy. Not at Third Street. Nope, not a one (-1,000). I had to order root beer instead because there’s no cocktails either.

The food looked good and there’s a $5 Monday Night football pizza special, which is cool (+200). They also have other food and drink specials throughout the week (Thursday is hot dog/wurst night for $5.50, +500).

My favorite part of the evening was when, although we had a table, place settings and menus for four people, our waitress brought our check about 4 minutes after the drinks and some food arrived, even though we only had three people sitting there. That pretty much guaranteed that we wouldn’t be ordering any more food and drinks (-5000).

We had also asked to speak with the manager at one point, who never bothered to stop by (-2000).

Monday Night football is a busy time, I will give you that. I understand slower than usual service, noisier than usual atmosphere and the scattered attentions of a busy server. I also commend Third Street for hiring differently-abled servers and participating in the local McJobs program, but rushing your customer out the door before the other person in their party even arrived and being completely ignored after requesting to speak to the manager is simply inexcusable. Third Street Aleworks = FAIL.

Final Score: -infinity