Earlier this year, one of the restaurants that we would go to from time to time - Governor's in Bettendorf - closed their doors and moved to a new location with a new concept and a new name called The Tangled Wood. We were eager to try the place a couple months after they opened, but each time we would go there the place was packed. My wife had a Monday off recently and I suggested that we go out for lunch somewhere. Then I remembered that we hadn't been to The Tangled Wood as of yet, so we ventured out there.
Governor's in Bettendorf had been a main-stay for over 40 years before they closed their location late last year at the corner of Middle Road and Devil's Glen to make way for a Hy-Vee Fast and Fresh convenience store. The ownership group - headed by Craig Wagner who also owns Steventon's and Blue Iguana out in LeClaire, IA - had announced nearly 2 years ago that they had outgrown the purpose for Governor's and were looking to put a new re-branded restaurant somewhere in Bettendorf. They had already closed the Governor's over in Moline in 2016 (personal note - that was the place my wife and I had our first official lunch date in 1993), and were focusing their efforts on the new Bettendorf location. They built a building just up the road from the old Governor's location at Devil's Glen and Tanglewood Road in Bettendorf (see map) and opened in January of this year.
It was around 1:30 p.m. when we made it into The Tangled Wood. We immediately were impressed with the dining area which featured a mixture of contemporary industrial fixtures and frames with some beautiful wood and brick accents. It was definitely a step-up from the decor at Governor's which had grown tired over the years. The atmosphere at The Tangled Wood was much more bright and lively compared to the dark wood accents and low lighting that people experienced at Governor's.
We should have realized something was amiss from the start when two young ladies were standing at the hostess stand for a couple minutes before they even acknowledged our presence. We had been sort of wandering around looking into the dining area and in the bar area before my wife went up to them and said, "Can we get seated for lunch?" One of the young ladies said, "Oh! I'm sorry. I thought you were looking for someone." No - we just wanted to check the place out since it was our first visit.
We had our choice of the bar or the dining room and we opted for a booth in the bar. The brick walls featured a number of flat screen televisions hanging from them, a number of high-top tables in the middle, booths on one wall and low-top tables along the other wall. A large outdoor patio/bar area - which was still under construction when we were there (but is open now) - was just beyond the large windows past the bar. Even if the patio was open, we wouldn't have sat out there as we were having an extremely cold late spring in the Midwest. And this day was no exception.
The bar, itself, featured three sides of seating with a large island of liquor shelves and taps in the middle. Their beer menu featured 44 beers on tap, as well as another 30 cans and bottles to choose from. Governor's always had a good beer selection, but nothing like the selection The Tangled Wood has.
After we were seated in the booth in the bar area, we were given food menus to look over. A couple young ladies who were servers came over to greet us. One explained that the other one was new and was in shadow training. (Turned out the "new" waitress was a seasoned veteran server from other restaurants whose first day at The Tangled Wood was that day and probably could have shown the other one a thing or two about waitressing.) I noticed that they had Kona Big Wave Golden Ale on tap and I ordered a pint of that. My wife just went with water for the time being. It was great they had the Big Wave on tap, but I was disappointed as it tasted sort of flat.
It's basically a whole new menu from the one they had at Governor's - well, sort of. They still have a number of sandwiches, appetizers, burgers and salads on the menu - many that were available at Governor's only with a new name. The Tangled Wood also features barbecued entrees such as ribs and brisket, they have 12" pizzas with a hand-tossed or tavern-thin crust, and they have some of Governor's old favorites like fish and chips, and their classic nachos on the menu.
My wife went with the grilled chicken sandwich. She asked for it without the brioche bun, but they put the house spread in a bowl on the side. (Don't exactly know what the house spread was, sort of like a mayo/dijon mustard, I guess.) She got the tomato-braised kale for her side.
I ordered the mushroom-Swiss burger with bacon on it. I also saw that they had onion straws for some of their sandwiches and I asked our waitress if I could get a side of those. The onion straws turned out to be nothing like I would classify as onion straws but more like thin cut food purveyor-style frozen onion rings.
On the menu, the grilled chicken sandwich was called "Tastes Like Chicken". My wife said it did not. It was overcooked, rubbery and void of flavor. She surmised the reason they had the house-made sauce with it was to at least give it some flavor. She was highly disappointed in the grilled chicken. But she did say that she very much liked the tomato-braised kale.
I had asked for some "pink" in my burger when the waitress asked how I wanted my burger cooked. Pink went out the window long before this burger was served to me. It was over-cooked and well-done. It didn't help that the bun that came with it was also dry - and there was too much of it. The grilled mushrooms were all right, and they slathered a lot of Swiss cheese on top of the burger to help give it some flavor. But the bacon was too crispy and crumbled apart like bacon bits. The onion rings were as I feared they would be - pretty dull. We were not happy with the quality of our meal.
And our waitresses literally left us. I like to be checked on, but not hovered over, during our meal and I really wanted another pint of Big Wave to help wash the dry food down. But they never came back. Finally, I was able to flag down the "new" waitress and she came over. She thought the other waitress had been back to check on us, but we hadn't seen her. She got me another flat tasting Big Wave, mainly because I didn't have their beer list and I wasn't going to go up to the bar to check out their tap handles.
We had hoped that our first visit to The Tangled Wood was an anomaly and that we would like to go back again at some point to try one of their tavern-style pizzas. But we've heard from a handful of friends who have gone out there since that they, too, were sort of disappointed in the food and service. It's a nice place, don't get me wrong. And I understand the outdoor patio/bar area is always packed during these summer months. But the chicken breast and the burger patty we had were both woefully overcooked. I really hoped The Tangled Wood would become part of our rotation of restaurants to visit when we'd go out on weekends with friends, but we're going to have to give it more time to figure things out before we'll go there again.
food sucks, service sucks, place is nice especially the outdoor patio
Posted by: shirley | March 25, 2024 at 10:06 PM