Philo Ridge Farm — Attraction in Charlotte

We wanted to love this place. The food was good (definitely not great) and, most importantly, not really worth the prefix price. This is especially true if you eat a plant based diet.

The appetizer salad was a quartered head of radicchio with some watermelon radish. The main, again for the veggie option, was half of a butternut squash with some greens and nuts. The dessert choices were not very creative items-- all overly sweetened as we found out by trying all three due to a fluke on the part of the waitress. (The service was also very incompetent. Very young, nice but sort of clueless staff).

As someone who does not eat meat, looking at the price of the plant-based options versus the meat dishes, Philo Ridge really has a long way to go to offer non meat eaters a meal that is worth the relatively reasonable $64. With tax, tip, sparkling water and a black coffee my portion of the bill came to over $80 for half a squash and some fancy lettuce.

The only thing I really splurge on is good food, so we were prepared to do that. The takeaway is that this is way beyond a normal markup, even in these post-pandemic times of massive overblown inflation.

Also, it took us an hour and 10 minutes to be served our main course. So in an hour and 10 minutes we were only served a salad and my partner's pork broth dish. And this was after we confirmed with the waitress that we would need to actually be seated and eat quicker than usual because we had an engagement afterwards. Needless to say, it was a frustrating experience to have the whole thing take twice as long as it should have, on top of the...

Was able to attend a small party charcuterie tasting with 24 people, representatives from the bakery Backdoor Bread, Jasper Hill Farms (cheeses), Babettes Table (meats), House of Fermentology and Foam Brewers were all here and presented information about their products as well as the team from Philo Ridge Farm. It was a beautiful location, and an excellent setup, sharing bread with the people who were reaponsible for creating this food from the raw ingredients. The food was incredible and the thought of leaving hungry at a tasting of this type was gone half way through the first course. The staff here is incredible.and they are doing amazing things to show that sustainable farming is possible and beneficial. The location and atmosphere are relaxed and our group had a wonderful experience here, I would rate it 6 stars if I was able to and we will certainly be going back to wander the farm and better understand their operation. The shop carries fantastic local products from all sorts of producers. The inside and outside of the building are gorgeous and just have a great sense of history while being very up to date, clean and relaxed. I cannot recommend checking this...

My recent visit to Philo Ridge Farm was incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I went with my family for a special event, only to find they had completely run out of food. When I explained our situation and asked if we could bring in outside food, especially since they couldn't provide any, a staff member repeatedly got in my face insisting it was their policy not to allow outside food.

I tried to explain that policies should have exceptions for human situations like this – it made no sense to refuse outside food when they had none to offer and we had already traveled there with our kids. Despite my reasoning, the staff member still didn't seem to understand or care, leaving us with no choice but to leave hungry.

To add insult to injury, I later learned that a friend was allowed to bring an outside pizza and eat it on the premises with their family on the same occasion, highlighting a shocking and frustrating inconsistency in their 'policy' enforcement.

This experience was a complete letdown, ruined our family outing, and demonstrated a clear lack of customer service and...