Lots of fun on a summer evening - sometimes there's a band ( which means a crowd) and other times you feel like you have the place to yourself! Great bar, unmatched views of Madison's beauty, friendly vibe always! read more

A shorter review since I was just here on a random Monday evening meeting up some co-workers who I'd never met in person before. The tiki bar didn't seem to be open, but since I was driving anyway and we had a long day of meetings the next day I didn't miss it. Since I'm coming from Illinois I had to get the requisite Spotted Cow. A fly took a swim in my colleague's beer who was really looking forward to it after a long day of travel, and they were nice enough to give her a fresh one. I also got a freshly grilled brat and some chips for just $6 which feels like a steal these days. Overall a nice place to chill with a great view of the lake and can see why it might be a popular spot for events. read more

Great views of the lake and sunset There is a full bar and micro brew beers, live music is good. Nice staff read more

For a place that calls itself a Tiki Bar it is pretty disappointing. We strolled over a week or so ago since it is one of the few places that is open during Covid given it is outdoors. The lawn and setting are great but I came for the tiki drinks. The worker I encountered really had no idea what a tiki drink is - she said they had margaritas and mojitos (not tiki drinks). I asked about a Mai Tai and she seemed clueless. She eventually remembered they had pina colada mix so that is what I had which was fine. I had only been here one other time, last August, and I recall them having a posted list of tiki drinks. Not sure where that went. On top of the lack of tiki drinks none of the staff wore masks which was rare for any type of food/drink place that I have encountered since reopening in late May. Next time I will make my own tiki drink and hang out next door at Olbrich park for the view! read more

East Side Club - Pina Colada - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

I came to the outdoor tiki bar once it opened, and was really excited to enjoy some outdoor weather and take in the view. It quite literally feels like you're just sitting in someone's backyards. There are a few sporadic tables, and random chairs all over the place so you can just grab what you need and set up where you like in the grass. I loved the very chill, non-fancy nature of it all and it really works for any group. I started with two and our group grew to about 12, and it was an easy adjustment... just find a random chair. There were plenty of chairs. The setting and atmosphere bumped to the three star rating. As for the bar itself... less great. Somewhere between a 2 and a 3 probably. I really wanted to feel like I was at a tropical tiki bar, and since there was no menu, I told the bartender I wanted something tropical and tiki-like but not too sweet. I watched him make the drink, and there was hardly any alcohol in it whatsoever. It tasted like pure juice. I did not bother going for another drink and just enjoyed the lake view. I would not be averse to going back, but would definitely stick to non-tropical beer (although the beer menu was also very basic and underwhelming). I think they were also making burgers and such on an outdoor grill. If you're coming for the drinks, maybe head elsewhere but I still recommend the place for its casual atmosphere but beautiful views. read more

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Went on Thursday prior to Great Midwest Beer Fest for beer and featured band. Location is great on lake. Plenty of seats and can bring chair. The beer I came for was "on deck" so no go. No prices posted but paid $7/tap. Band was just ok but no cover. Would go back if good band. read more

East Side Club - Capital view! - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

Love the location on Lake Monona.   The young men at the bar provided good and friendly service with a smile!   The Migrants' food is good.   Both the bar and food stand need more help to eliminate the long lines on a busy night.  If you want to drink and/or eat and do not enjoy spending time standing in line, go on less busy night, when the performers are not as popular.  Speaking of performers, last night, they had the always great VO-5.   Unfortunately, without an elevated stage, you could barely see them, if at all.  And, unlike other venues where I have seen them, a lot of rude people around me were talking. VO-5 are best at a venue with an elevated stage and a crowd that is there to listen and dance, not talk. Unfortunately, the ESC website mentions nothing about cover or entrance fee.  https://escmadison.com/events read more

Hey it is what it is ! We came by boat on a hot summer day. Decent docking with plenty of space to tie up. The Tiki Bar is lake side with a lot of grassy areas to relax. Everybody was friendly and laid back! So nice. read more

This review is pretty much just for the outdoor area of the East Side Club. The lawn in back, the Tiki Bar, etc. What a fun place! Right on the lake - typically a bit cooler and breezier than other parts of town during the very hot months. I played in a Kubb League here for a couple summers and it was always a great setting and very accommodating for all of us. The service, be it at the inside bar or the Tiki, is always friendly and usually pretty quick. The huge lawn offers plenty of space to spread out. There are lots of tables and chairs as well so you can usually always find a comfy spot to sit. I definitely recommend checking this place out. It's great to sit and relax and watch the sun go down on the lake. read more

East Side Club - Cute! - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

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HMI, I am glad I found my favorite fried southern catfish and I don't have to wait for the once a year I see your stand at the Willy Street Fair, to get it! Went here tonight, for the first time for Friday fish. We got here early, as we didn't want to get caught up with the bar scene or live music. Setted at a table by the window, looking out onto the lake was beautiful after a long week. Host sat us with water, menus and waitress had our order in minutes, with warm dinner roll and coleslaw to follow. Both the hubs and I ordered fried catfish him with potatoes and me with okra, then we shared hush puppies. Hot, fresh, and mouth watering! We are already planning our next visit, as I was too full for dessert read more

East Side Club - Great lake view from inside the restaurant - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

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Pssst. Tiki Bar nights. Limited selection but darned fun with one of the best views in Madison. If you don't believe it then all the more for me! read more

Tiki bar is lackluster, but 5-stars for the heaping pile of trash pouring from the overflowing dumpsters. Worth a visit just to observe the exquisite smells normally only a landfill can provide. read more

Tickets were $40 for all you can eat and certain drinks. A lot of restaurants here with awesome bites of food. I only made it through 1 of 3 levels before I got full. 2 more hours to go so I can work up another appetite...lol. It was a but idyl day and awesome event. I will certainly attend next year. The event was from 3-6 p.m. We got there a little after 3 and the parking lot was full. Had to park across the street down in the neighborhood. read more

East Side Club - Beautiful day with food, drinks. Music and camaraderie while supporting the River Food Pantry. - Venues & Event Spaces Near Me - Madison, Wisconsin

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I'm astounded at the fuss is around this place. Outside of the view and that it has that hipster smell, what's the attraction? Limited beer selection. I could accept that if the food were good. But it's not. Went for the "famous" Friday fish fry. Clearly nothing is made from scratch. The coleslaw was average. The roll was something out of the freezer. The "roasted" potatoes were still crunchy. And the fish was on the order of Mrs Paul's. Seriously, I don't expect a lot from a $13 fish meal, but I do expect better than what I was served. The cafeteria at work serves better fish for half the price. The service was good and the people were friendly, but at some point the food needs to carry it's weight. This is a restaurant after all. read more

The East Side Club reminds me of a cross between a VFW hall and the bars my parents took us to* as kids in northern Wisconsin in the 80s and 90s. I've only hung out in the basement bar and the beautiful outdoor lakeside lawn. I'm not sure if the banquet hall has been updated, but these areas look the same as when they were built decades ago. I've been to the bar for a cancer fundraiser and a chili cook-off. The chili cook-off was disorganized if you were a newcomer - most people seemed to be regulars and knew the drill, but as newbies we had a heck of time getting any info. The people cooking chili were serving some people, so we tried to buy samples. The only info we got was "you have to buy tickets and they'll send you through." So we went to the ticket table and just got stared at while we tried to buy a dollar's worth of tickets (samples were 25 cents). We were then wordlessly handed them after asking again. We went back to try to get a sample. "Not ready." Oooookay. We finally talked to a friend who explained samples didn't start until 1 and everyone had to line up and the people being served were probably just friends of the entrants. Not sure why the three people involved in the cook-off that we spoke to couldn't have shared this info, but alas. The bar itself has Bud and Bud Light on tap, and a rotating mix of cans (Spotted Cow was $3). There's also a small selection of liquor (vodka and raspberry Pucker seemed to be popular) and a couple of wines. I've had better luck on the lawn in the summer with their Sunset Music Series (if that's still happening, it's been a couple of years since I've gone). The setting on Lake Monona is gorgeous, their "tiki bar" offered some super cheap bottles (I think cider was $2 my last visit), and the inclusion of food carts made for a tasty and inexpensive dinner. BYO chair and enjoy the sunset. The ESC does have a bocce league that intrigues me every year (but that I often don't remember until it's too late to sign up). There's a mix of member-only events and ones open to the public. It's also available for event rentals. While the building might lack the wow factor, the view more than makes up for it. *Didn't grow up in Wisconsin? It's totally legal and totally normal to take your kids to bars during the day or for dinner, especially in small towns where the bar might be the only place serving food at night. read more

Food was at best a 3 out of 5. Our group of 6 was seated at a table with 2 glasses of water. We said we would like water for everyone. After about 10 minutes I went to the servers table and got 4 more glasses of water. We were given one small bowl of coleslaw. Asked for more but none ever came. Food prep was pretty quick but waitress was easily sidetracked and food was slow to arrive. Waitress never checked to see if everything was OK or asked anyone if they wanted more...for an all you can eat fish fry that was very strange. We probably wont be going back. Basic waitress training needs to take place. The host/cashier was very personable and trying hard Looking for something positive...my wife said the waitress had nice dimples. read more

This venue has the best views of the lake bar none. Everything else is questionable at best.

"We'll never go there again". Literally these are the words we just exchanged after getting home. Maybe if something about it was good.. The service? No. Terrible. We got our salad, waited 15 minutes, got our wine and then 39 second later, our fish. Maybe if the salad was good? No, the "wedge" was lettuce, carrots and bacon. The fish fry? Tasteless and Luke warm. The only good thing about this place was the nice older bartender who served our bottle of wine in a beer pitcher :) read more

Perhaps 50 years ago institutional food was served with white tablecloths and cloth napkins; so if you are seeking a great place to entertain grandma, head on over to the East Side Club for the "famous" Crandalls fish fry. Two plates of cod, fries and the iceberg garden salads complete with one half wedge of tomato and two rings of onion, 2 beers and tip $50. read more

the tiki bar is fun! (open in the summer every night from 4p-10p with the exclusion of possible friday and saturday night weddings that rent it out privately) but the fish fry on friday nights is definitely worth skipping. cold, bland food for too much money. full of elderly people, which usually means it's just bland and cheap, but it was $24 for my husband and i to have the buffet (which is the only option on fridays, don't know about other days). i love fish frys and this one was highly disappointing. BUT i'm still giving this place 4 stars because the back yard and tiki bar are pretty stellar and they have a sunday brunch that i'd still like to try out. i wouldn't go there for dinner again though, but if you want to drink a beer and sit by the lake (assuming that you don't already live on a lake), this is the place to go! friendly staff and gorgeous views of the capitol, especially at night. read more

Love going to fish fry, tiki bar and sunset series. They have really improved over the years, and it is a great experience.

Just got married here, the management and staff were so helpful and easy to work with! And the location can't be beat! Beautiful views and, access to the lawn. Thanks so much for being a part of our special night! read more

We just hosted our daughter's wedding at the East Side Club and they did an excellent job. Everything was set up as we asked. We had reserved the upper part of the building and the views were absolutely amazing. The ceremony was on the lawn, lakeside and it suited our needs well. They even cleaned the goose poop off the dock so that the wedding party could take pictures. The manager Jen was easy to get a hold of to answer questions and was very helpful with all of the details. Our bartenders Jon and Angie were amazing. Any question or concern that I had they were ready to assist in any way that they could. Thank you for making our daughter and son-in-law's day a success. read more

East Side Club has a new caterer for their Friday night Fish Fry. We used to enjoy this when Crandalls catered it but now SLIDERS the food cart people are running it. First of all the base fish fry is $12. If you pay another $2 you will get a tiny baked potato. If you add another $5 you get soup or salad. I got the baked fish and it came with about 1/4 inch of melted butter in a tin cup. This is the 2nd week they have been running the fish fry and people who come one week, typically won't be back for the 2nd. I know we won't. It's SYSCO food service according to one of the servers. Like the food cart, but fish fry-not so much. read more

Wednesday night BINGO is a BLAST. My friends and I go every so often and have so much fun. Cheap food & drinks - plus tons of great people watching and of course - the occasional win! Overall - really cheap, hilariously fun entertainment. Dobbers are $1 each, and cards range from $6 - $18 depending on how many squares you want. read more

Sunset at the tiki bar is as good as it gets besides the Union!

4 of us went on a Friday night. We got there after 8pm, so there were plenty of tables and we got to sit by the front window and enjoy the view of the Capitol. The service was great, very attentive staff. My husband and I had catfish dinners. Loved their catfish (corn meal batter), tarter sauce was good, and the cole slaw was the best I've ever had. My husband had fried okra, and I had small potatoes which were both excellent. The only thing I think would make a better dining experience would be an upgrade to their bills, as the bill only listed our dinner choices, but did not show the prices so we didn't know how much our bill came to. My husband went to the person at the door to settle the bill. It's possible that they intend for people to pay at the door as they leave, but we didn't know that, and it made it a little more difficult to figure out who owed what, and to calculate the tip. However, because the food and service were great otherwise, we will definitely eat there again. read more

Having a brunch place on the east side/Monona area seemed like a good idea, until we actually got there. The hostess had a huge crowd in the foyer and was bussing tables ! We had to actuallt be a bit aggressive to be acknowledged and then asked if we could seat ourselves since it was clear she wasn't going to. She seemed not to remember that we had just told her we had a reservation for two and that there were five tables sitting empty. I know that brunch can be tricky but a caterer should be able to handle it. The food on the steam tables was either freshly brought out or completely cold. The eggs were tasteless and sitting in water, the "quiche" wasn't, it was scrambled egg in a tasteless soggy crust with congealed cold cheese on top and the smoked salmon wasn't either. It was fishy and soggy as if it had been frozen and then thawed out. The only tasty thing was the fresh fruit. $19.99 for the worst restaurant meal in recent memory. read more

I'm not even sure where to begin. We arrived around 6:30 and were told there would be a 40 minute wait. That quickly turned into an hour and a half. At that point a worker that was not on the clock started clearing tables because he couldn't stand how long they had been sitting there dirty. There were also a bunch of open tables with nobody seated and a list of people that needed to be seated. One of the bartenders seemed super nervous. I asked for the beer list, or what they had in bottles, and she became very unsure of what to do. We eventually grabbed a table on our own and then sat there for a good half hour before service came. She took our order and then the waiting continued. After a while she brought us an order of curds for free because of the long wait. She eventually came back to let us know she forgot to put our order in. Five minutes later we left with our order to go. They comped it, but it was a solid 3 hours of pure chaos. The staff was really chaotic and unorganized. Nobody knew what to do or what other people were doing. The owner was in the kitchen and on the floor serving when she should have been managing and keeping people on task. We love this place in the summer. When everything is outside in they backyard, but this was our first and last fish experience. The service was awful, the staff was unsure of what to do, and the food orders were underwhelming. Do not order the catfish. We got three pieces, but I think they were half pieces that fell apart. There was literally almost no fish. We got the wrong sides. The chips were uber oily, and they filed the plastic to go cups about an eighth full of tartar sauce so we ran out immediately. Like I said I love the backyard in the summer, but I'd skip the fish. At least until they get their shit together. read more

Don't ever use this place! The building is Outdated, the manager is rude and condecending to customers. It's not a very well run establishment. There's no parking. Other than that it's awful! read more

Hey, maybe the menu has changed but the fish fry was really good! The drinks are good and inexpensive and the view of Lake Monona and the capitol were the best. The place just needs a bit of a facelift and more folks to fill it up. Epic folks--maybe a new venue for you? read more

I wanted to love this venue as it was close to where I grew up and my parents used to attend their fish fry often. The entire building is very outdated, not in a charming way. During the approximately 10 months after booking and before our wedding day we worked with 4 different event managers due to turnover. Most of our plans had not been saved other than a few emails we had so we needed to rehash the plan with each new manager. The owner/board member was rude and unprofessional. He stated that he does not give money back because all of the brides just want discounts for everything. The small freebies he offered as a consolation for poor service/experience ended up being charged on our final invoice (eventually corrected). The slightly lower room rental rate quickly rises since they charge a fee for any of their existing decor as well as the bridal "suite" which is a storage room with a bathroom, table, and couch on the bottom floor only. I would highly suggest paying for a more expensive facility that includes a reliable event manager and offers existing onsite decor at no charge. The final event manager we worked with was pretty good but did not make up for all of the rest. I would not recommend this venue for any event, especially a wedding. read more