I was living in Wudaokou for 2 years and keep going there once a while and I can say that this place is really the worst place in the area. Fortunately now there more places around, like La Bamba and Helen's. Reasons:

1.Price: completely overpriced. Currently and before. In 2006 a burger cost 25RMB, now it costs 45RMB. How is that possible? Just inflation? I don't think so. On an average inflation of 5% (now inflation for meat is 10% yes, but 2008 and 2009 it was negative) over the last 5 years the price should be now 30RMB. Imported ingridients? In 2006 USD was 8.3RMB/USD and now it is 6.3RMB/USD, so it should be cheaper for Lush to buy imported ingridients!!! Maybe their purchasing people is not so good....

2.Atmosphere: only for Americans. Quiz nights just for American topics, American food and enviroment (except for the poor English of their waitress). But still about prices, I don't understand why Americans are willing to pay more for the same food they have back home....

3.Empathy: have Lush realized how is Wudaokou changing? With the mess we have in our home countries more and more poor foreigners are coming to China to study Chinese but Lush still offers high prices. Euro and USD are not the same as before but their prices keep going up making for us foreigners harder and harder to afford their food and drinks.

4.Competitors: apparently some other businessmen they saw the chance given by Lush and oppened quite a lot of new bars and restaurants in the area. La Bamba and Helen's are great places, with the same food as Lush but with great deals every day. 15RMB small Qingdao bottle in Lush and at the same time 50m. away in La Bamba 5RMB draft beer. Want to know more? Go to La Bamba.

Dear Lush managers: your bar is in Wudaokou, foreigners there have little money. Basic rule for business is to have empathy with the customers. I strongly recommend you the following:

-Review your price policy.
-Not focus only in Americans: remember when Koreans left Wudaokou after the Korean Won fall 30% in 2008. USD looks to be following the way,....If not, in the mid-term your bar will be full of rich Chinese and no foreigners (the real rich people in Wudaokou) or you will end up same as O2 bookstore.

Until you change that, I will keep going to La Bamba and Helen's.

EDITED/UPDATED:

I've lived in Wudaokou for a while, and quite like Lush--it's expensive, yes, but the food is good and the people there are normally very sweet.

However, I recently had a TERRIBLE time there. I got there early one day--about 7am/8am?--to have breakfast and finish up a work project. There were about five waiters/waitresses, and the only people there were me and a table of students sobering up from a propaganda night. Shortly after I got my meal, an older drunk guy wandered in.

What then followed was a good hour, hour and a half of this drunk guy wandering over my table and trying to talk to me, yelling, and at one point trying to eat off my plate/steal my coffee. I yelled at the guy, and tried again and again to get the staff to help me out. Eventually a guy there talked to him, but only to yell at the guy to return to his seat. When the guy refused, the waiter walked off. This continued until the drunk finally wandered over to the students in the corner and I left.

I get that this is the drunks fault, and I didn't expect them to solve the problem, but I don't understand why they couldn't kick a guy out when he was trying to take food from patrons (who had already paid!)

UPDATE:

so, shortly after posting this a manager from Lush contacted me to appologize/talk about the issue--which was very professional and amazing. I was very impressed, and so have raised my review to a four...because while the staff there wasn't great, the management certainly is, and I trust that they have solved the problem. So, good for you Lush--def. saved a customer.

I lived and worked in the Zhichunlu area for much of last year and frequented Lush. It's expensive but the food was consistent and the service was good (for China). Then I moved, our office moved, and I haven't been back very often since.

The last two times I've been, it's really been off. The waitstaff barely speak English now; today it was a comedy of my terrible Chinese and the waitstaff's terrible English. Even the manager barely spoke enough English to understand the problem.

My problem? I ordered a hot sandwich, and the chicken was cold. I wasn't sure whether it'd been cooked through and it didn't taste right anyway, so I wanted to send it back. The first waiter just tried to get me to accept the problem ("keyi ma?") and only after I was fairly insistent (bu keyi!) was any effort made to correct the issue.

My friend ordered a wrap, and wanted to order an extra side of soup. Usually this is an extra 10 RMB for a cup of soup, but instead of charging him 10 RMB for his drink and an extra 10 RMB for a cup of soup, the waiter made him order an entire bowl of soup. You can apparently order a cup of soup with a wrap for 10 RMB more if you don't order a drink, but if you order a drink, you can only order a bowl of soup. This left me thinking "only in China..."

At any Chinese restaurant, I can experience obtuse policies and language barriers for 1/4 the price. Given the high premium that Lush charges, I expect better.

Lush is a great student hangout for Wudaokou. Nothing fancy, but the food is good and reminds me of home, the alcohol isn't fake, and it's always a good time. There's a reason that Lush is a legend and that every student in Beijing has passed through its doors.

This was our place for hangout when I studied couple of years ago. Been recently here and am still quite fine with the cheese burger, the place is getting complaints from some student community.
The manager or owner better do something about it .
I still like the place as it has some go memories. The beer is reasonabl priced .

One of my favorite places in Wudaokou. I like their burgers and ice cream. I have many good memories there. One thing I don't like is the smell of cigarettes.

For breakfast or anytime bite this is one of the frequently visited place for us.
It works for us.

Overlooking Wudaokou, Lush was highly recommended to me by friends. However, the food, as well as service were just very subpar. Having tried both the burgers and chicken sandwiches, I have to say that the other sandwich establishments are definitely much better. I suppose the only thing Lush really has going for it is the lower price; besides that, the actual atmosphere is not great, with rather limited seating, and the food is decent at best.

My favorite part about Lush is sitting in one of the tables with windows overlooking the bustling streets below. This is a bustling place day and night. The drinks are adequate without being too pricey, and the food is some of the better Western/American-style food to be found on the west side. The burgers are cheap and are actually real, decent-sized burgers with all the requisite toppings but I tried their chili once, and wouldn't recommend it. Perhaps chili is too strange a concept to be mastered? They have events almost every night, like movie night, open-mic, etc. Always something going on here.

This is the most special place for me.
I met my baby there 5 years ago, and most of our first-month-dates were in there too, we are regualr there, and both have special feeling about this students bar.
Drink there are not bad, and not expensive either, if you get there during their happy hour, should be a great deal. The owner sure knows how to run business, they are cafe and restaurant in the day time, and turn into a pub during the night. Then they have activities each day, like movie night, ope mic... I suppose most students from BLCU or Beida or Qinghua knows this place better then my review.
BTW, when i left beijing 2 years ago, i specially went there , got several "I love WU" Tshirts for all my good friends. The black bar-Tshirt they have actually have good quality and well-shaped too.
Cheers Lush!