The Social — Restaurant in Bristol

I love this place in the evening for a drink with friends. They sometimes have nice live music and the sofas are comfortable. It is a bit of a Stokes Croft institution (not as good as LeftBank next door though, if it ever reopens, sad face). However... I came here recently with my boyfriend for dinner and it wasn't a great experience. Pretty sure the staff member intentionally overcharged us - he put one price into the card reader, and then upped it when my boyfriend wasnt looking. I noticed this and I said something to my boyfriend afterwards as the server walked away and we began to add up the bill using the prices on the menu. It seemed then like the server heard me doing this and he suddenly he came back and announced he had overcharged us and gave us 2 quid in change. It was all very strange, it seemed a bit fishy. Don't give yourselves tips boys, that's just not cool. I'll give you a tip if you deserve it! Also the whole experience was definitely NOT coronavirus safe, from the sticky unwashed menus to the handling of change, this didn't really bother me but it certainly might bother some people who are high risk. Finally the food, which was just one sharing dish, chips with Katsu curry, took 1 whole hour to arrive after ordering (no exaggeration). Staff were audibly swearing and seemed stressed. To their credit it was swealteringly hot and they have extra table service measures in place to deal with so I'm sure they are not having an easy time at the moment. Just maybe give this place a miss if you want a nice meal out, it's more of a pub/bar for...

I spent last weekend in Bristol and was looking for a brunch place with a few friends on Sunday, about 90 minutes prior to our coach departure. Our first impression of The Social was a nice one, as it is a cosy space with nice furniture and ambience. Placing our orders went fairly quickly. But then our experience became quite bad.

We waited for more than an hour. During that time, no one gave us an update on our order. No one even bothered checking on tables. I know this because by the time we left the cafe, our table (located at the front window) still had the dirty plates and cups from the PREVIOUS visitors on it. No one ever bothered to clear them!

We kept looking at the bar where some of the staff were busy wiping the counter multiple times, or mixing drinks. It needs to be said that, for a Sunday, it was not too busy. So, there really is no excuse why the staff would ignore visitors that way. We also asked them several times about our order, which did not help speed the process up, and our table remained full of dirty plates.

We had entered the cafe at around 1:35pm, and by 2:40pm we had become very restless as our coach was leaving the station at 3:15pm. So, we asked them to please put our food in takeaway boxes. This took almost another ten minutes!

Thanks to the oblivious staff of the Social, we had to eat our food in the waiting room of the coach station. I cannot recommend this place and it almost ruined our Sunday afternoon – luckily, the rest of our stay in Bristol had been a nice one. Won't be back...

Prior to lock down the social was a close second for us next Bristolian or crafty egg. The three usuals. Recently I came around twice for brunch, sadly to some disappointment. Coffee is great as usual. The eggs hollandaise were bit bland and undercooked(goopy) for my taste. Without any garnish at least for bit of an appeal. As plain as they came unless you add more extras. I'm OK with extras but it's the bare minimum I'm not too impressed with. Second time I came for breakfast most of it was OK. Hash browns were my fav part probably. Eggs that time were done very nicely. But the potatoes were inedible to me. Greasy and for whatever reason green. Tasted off. Today I opted to go somewhere else sadly with my partner :( I'll check back in the future perhaps. It just worries me as the place should definitely be little more busy. As I...