The Stairwell 23 Mardyke Street, Athlone, County Westmeath N37 R5V9

"First visit, seemed like a nice place on arrival. Food is very reasonable, came out quick and hot which was a positive, but was average at best. Very bland, my partner ordered the house special burger which was so drowned in sauce the bun fell apart on the first bite, he left 3/4 of it behind. Our drinks (bottled) were warm, you could tell they weren't kept in a fridge. Service wasn't great, unless we flagged a staff member down nobody came to us at all. We were never asked how our meal was throughout or when we paid, the young man that brought our food was so busy looking at the match in the TV he just more or less threw our food in front of us. Before leaving I used the ladies bathrooms, to say they were absolutely disgusting is an understatement, out of four there was only toilet paper in one, the rest were all blocked up and just badly kept in general."

"Lovely atmosphere in this Gastropub. Service was very good. Staff were lovely & the choice of food was great. This was our 2nd time there. We finished off our meal with Death by Chocolate! What can I say but fabulous. Would highly recommend."

"I visited this restaurant a few days ago with my colleague after being recommended it by someone. When I first entered this recently opened restaurant, no staff came to seat us we were rather left wondering what to do. Majority of staff ignored us (including management) only for we were then seated by a young brown haired girl. Whom was very polite and seemed to be doing all the work where the other staff members were slacking on. I was particularly shocked by who seemed to be the manager of the poorly ran business. An older dark haired man who went around wearing a bomber jacket ?? He did not greet us nor acknowledge us the entire time we were there. Instead, walked around on a power trip. Excluding of the bad parts, both me and my colleague ordered food from a menu with great variety which was of satisfaction. In summary this restaurant needs someone to run it correctly. In experienced staff (except one girl) including the manager. If this business ever wants to be successful it needs to reconsider the person in charge. A business with a lot of potential."

"POSITIVES: The place itself looks nice, and the atmosphere was pretty good. The staff was overall nice and the food only took 15 minutes to arrive. Food arrived hot. Food portion was pretty big. NEGATIVES: The glass that my drink was served with was dirty. Unfortunately only noticed half way though drinking it. It had these grey blobs of dirt on the outside which I could scrape off with my finger. The menu said that the burger is served with skinny chips, salad and onion rings. However as you can see in the photos, the onion ring is in the burger instead. A minor thing but when you take out the onion rings from the burger, all that's left is the burger and onion. The burger itself was tasteless. Not sure if they even added any burger sauce as I couldn't taste any. The salad was awful, way too much onion. All that I could taste was the onion. I wasn't a big fan of the chips, but they were okay. My partner said she enjoyed the chips and onion rings but also found the burger tasteless. Men's toilet wasn't in the worse state ever but definitely could have been cleaned more often. The toilet doesn't flush, the soap dispenser was empty. They had a little plastic soap dispenser that you can buy in any store but even that was watered down... not sure why, they are hardly that expensive.. From what my partner said, the female toilet had soap in the dispenser but both handles for the toilets were broken. CONCLUSION: In total I paid a little under 50 euro, for two dinners and two drinks (kopparberg and bulmers). Given that the food was a little disappointing, I probably won't be returning as there's many other places in Athlone which can do a better burger for less money. But perhaps my experience was just an exception, I'd recommend you try it for yourself. I'll update this review is I ever return in the future."