I am the vacation planer for the family. I book the rooms, order the tickets, map the routes, and make the rezzes. This week finds us in Hershey, PA; we’re doing Hershey Park, but we’re mostly here for the Foo Fighters show tonight. We drove in yesterday afternoon and are lodged at a pretty decent Best Western on Chocolate Ave.

I made a dinner rez for last night at the around-the-corner Snitz Creek Brewery. Rhonda and I love beer, and the boys bar food, so it seemed like a good choice. It’s a pretty corporate place despite the appearance; would that I had the forethought to take my camera into the restroom, I could have delighted the reader with the cut-out-keg urinals. But alas.

Big picture, Snitz does a fine job with food; beer selection was mixed, and the service was lousy.

Rhonda started off with the Opening Day IPA, which is one of the brews I figured she would like to try; I went on their website the night before and reordered the list, grouping them by the styles I thought we’d be interested in. There’s a lot of fruit and dessert flavors on the list that I knew we’d avoid. The Opening Day is about twice as hoppy as the already aggressively hopped local favorite by Bonesaw, Swoosh. It’s nearly 100 IBUs, and there’s not much malt in the mix. Not for me. I tried the Golden Lager, which is a Helles style; I found this to be thin and boring in body and flavor. I know what a Helles is and what to expect, and this wasn’t a good iteration of the style.

Happily, the other beer I had my eye on, the Hopper Dropper, was much better (if a bit much): a hazy, nicely hopped IPA. Rhonda got the Citra, which is a much less bitter IPA that is hopped exclusively with Citra hops. Round two beers were both thumbs up.

The food at Snitz was, from start to finish, excellent and nicely executed. We all shared some wings, half hot and half mild; perhaps by accident, the mild came out with no sauce at all, which isn’t mild: it’s plain. But they were fresh and crispy and we all agreed, delicious. We also got the eggrolls, which featured local mushrooms. They too were excellent.

Rhonda got a smash burger, which was true to the style: gooey with cheese, juicy but not pink. I had a chicken satay bowl, which was a couple of boneless thighs with a bbq sauce. I intended to skip the rice, but found myself eating some of it anyway because it was so good. Aaron picked up some flavor in the rice, and Rhonda guessed it was Garam Masala. Aaron’s crispy pork chop was a riff on the same bowl I ordered, and it too was really good. Joe’s korean chicken sandwich looked good, served on the same brioche bun as Rhonda’s smashburger, but it was not a fried sandwich; the chicken was, I think, exactly what comes on the Satay. I do find that sleight of hand disingenuous, though: calling something “Korean chicken,” and describing it as “crispy,” would suggest to at least a sophomoric diner that it would be fried. Still good. But not fried.

The service was really bad at Snitz, though; we arrived and took our seats, and the server asked about drink choices. We needed a few minutes to make a decision about a beer, but because happy hour was almost over, the server launched into a dissertation about how we could save a buck by ordering one before 6 pm. I made a six pm rez and didn’t give a rat’s ass about happy hour when I made it, but more to the point, if you think happy hour is going to cause a stir at my table, give me the beer at 6:03 pm for the happy hour price. Least damaging? Just say, “Happy hour pricing is available until 6 pm” and let us peruse.

He then disappeared for a long time, and while yes, we did ask for some time to review the draft list, we had made decisions quickly thereafter. For the second round, I had to serve myself at the bar, which I always find annoying and should be embarrassing to the staff. What’s worse, I handed the bar tender our empties and asked for the two new pours (different styles) and what ensued was a lengthy pause and steady eye contact while the bartender reminded me that the glasses I was handing him were for two other styles. It was as if the notion of having a second beer that what not the same as the first was not only unusual but transgressive. Buddy… people do it all the time.

This brings me to the larger point about Snitz: it feels very polished but also corporate. That a person had to make this speech communicates that there’s no flexibility for on-the-floor staff, which sounds corporate to me. And the utter polish of the food, and the online rez system, and the goofy beer names… just something strikes me that way. I’m not above dining at a chain, but I don’t prefer the experience, generally, save for obvious hits like Shake Shack.

I’d go there again, though.