Allentown: Pub at Wegmans (March 2016)

Pub by Wegmans

My spouse and I ate dinner at the Pub by Wegmans on a Saturday evening in mid-March 2016. The Pub is open for lunch and dinner daily, and it accepts bookings via the Open Table reservation system and by telephone. Complimentary parking is available in the regular grocery store parking lot. We have eaten at the Pub two other times since it opened in mid-2013.

The Pub features a few dining areas; we prefer to sit at the large wrap-around kitchen bar, where we can watch the food being prepared, but you can also sit at a table or booth, at the (alcohol) bar, or in a more contained back room (which only seems utilized to handle overflow). When the Pub first opened, the majority of the dining areas were open to the grocery store, with the beer coolers on one side and self-seating for the store’s prepared food on another; the Pub has since hung filmy curtains around those two sides of the perimeter for more privacy (a welcome addition). Our only criticism of the space is that we could not hear the man who was playing the baby grand piano in the self-seating area, which would have added a nice touch to our dining. (Perhaps they can relocate the piano from the rear of that area to the front of that space to reach the Pub’s diners.)

The Pub’s menu features American cuisine. We shared the Irish nachos as an appetizer (it was the weekend following St Patrick’s Day), which were described as crispy potatoes topped with cheese, scallions, and bacon; we were surprised to find that the “crispy potatoes” meant potato chips (although they did seem house-made). As entrees, we ordered the chopped salad and the hamburger. The dressing on the chopped salad may have been just a bit too heavy-handed, but otherwise the salad was nicely prepared. The burger arrived just slightly overdone as “medium” when it was ordered “medium-rare”. Unfortunately, we were unimpressed by the crème brulee for dessert, which seemed heavier/denser and more eggy (pale yellowish) than we usually find.

The Pub by Wegmans clearly fills a need, for it was quite busy on the weekend night that we dined. (We definitely recommend making a reservation.) Although we won’t rush right back here, we do enjoy sitting at the chef’s bar for entertainment, and we prefer to dine here than at nearby chain restaurants because the Pub is more unique and its menu changes periodically.