Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant

At happy hour one evening last week, Gordon Biersch on Paradise Road was packed.

No surprise there. Not only is it a brew pub -- the kind of place most of us would automatically think of when we think of the words "happy hour" -- but it's in the tourism corridor, so it draws a lot of visitors, and it's a short hop from most of the centers of employment in Las Vegas. And since -- unlike all of the restaurants that have started offering happy hours as a way of pulling in customers in a dismal economy -- the early evening hours at Gordon Biersch have been happy ones for probably as long as the place has been open, you'd think they'd have it down to a science.

You'd be wrong.

Take, for example, the chain's legendary garlic fries ($5). I'd had them at Gordon Biersch before, but my most vivid memory of them is from a San Francisco 49ers game a few years ago, when the stadium concourse was filled with their fragrant aroma and long lines were forming at the GB stands.

You'd think the Paradise Road branch would do a particularly exemplary job with such a signature dish. Again, you'd be wrong. They were not particularly hot (not ice-cold, but more like lukewarm), not crisp, and tasted of stale oil, the multitude of garlic being the only saving grace.

And we were more than a little surprised by the shrimp and chicken potstickers ($7), which were lukewarm inside. Think about that: Potstickers are, by definition, fried. When you fry something -- especially something that encases a fair amount of moisture, as these dumplings by nature do -- they tend to build up a lot of steam inside, with the interior staying hot long after the potstickers have been served.

Not these. Again, lukewarm inside, denying the laws of physics -- and certainly the conscience of any good culinarian. Were they pre-cooked and nuked? I have no idea, but that's the only explanation I can conjure.

We fared considerably better with two other happy-hour menu items, the rosemary-chicken flatbread ($5) and the barbecued pork sliders ($5). The flatbread was hot, the crust crisp, the top scattered with not only rosemary and chicken but also black olives, red onion and feta, which was a pleasing combination.

And the sliders were juicy (again, hot!) little wonders with a little bit of sweet, a little bit of smoky and an awful lot of good.

Service throughout was mixed. After the friendly hostess seated us at a table in the bar, we waited so long we were beginning to wonder if there were servers, until we saw one across the room. We waited a while longer until a server appeared and asked for our drink order. Then we tried to order some food, and she snapped -- and "snapped" is actually putting it kind of mildly -- that she wasn't our waitress, and that our waitress would be by in a while.

Well, OK, then. Clearly our telepathy skills were on the fritz; of course we should have known. When our server finally did appear, she seemed a little spacey but was otherwise OK. Still, it's a sad situation when the runners and busers are the most efficient and personable people in the room.

And while the atmosphere is pretty nice overall (in a classic pub style), the big rip in the banquette near us definitely brought to mind a greasy spoon instead of an upscale brew pub.

Happy hour is a pretty good deal at Gordon Biersch -- most appetizers are $5 or $7, and you get $1 off their beers, $2 off glasses of wine and $5 off cocktails -- but the days when it didn't have much competition are over.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.