Sidecar Social Addison — Restaurant in Addison

Ambiance - 2 Stars Cleanliness - 5 Stars Service - 2 Stars Taste - 2 Stars Presentation - 3 Stars Price - 3 Stars Spirits - 1 Star Gluten Friendly - 1 Star

Ambiance

From the outside, the place had an alluring appeal. It looked promising, upbeat, social, and fun. You can even see that they had games out on the patio, which was well-lit and very clean. As we walked around the inside of the venue, we had a hard time speaking with one another about where we would like to eventually sit because of the live band that was playing. Due to the excessive volume, we decided to sit outside. What a mistake! We arrived at 9:30pm on a Saturday night and the football game was on. We were sat directly in front of a speaker playing the channel that the game was on, which was so loud that we could barely hear each other. At 10pm, the sound channel was switched to 2000's pop and they CRANKED up the volume to the point at which speaking at all was futile.

Cleanliness

The strongest area of this bar/restaurant by far. Not a single table was left uncleaned, all chairs pushed in and organized well. Great layout for seating both inside and out. No food anywhere except for where it was supposed to be.

Service

Our food took about 25 minutes, but we only ordered two small appetizers. Our drinks about 10 minutes. After our food arrived, our waitress did not return for 30 minutes, until it was time to bring the check. During this time, at least three managers passed us by, overlooking the room, and did not check on a single table. Meanwhile, the man carding at the front door abandoned his post, and was dancing in front of two customers on the patio. He later switched to carding at the back door, leaving the front door unmanned.

Taste

I ordered an appetizer as a small plate, and my wife did the same. I had the Mozzarella Bites, and she had the Crispy Brussels Sprouts. The Bites were cooked well, but lacked anything spectacular in both creativity and flavor. The marinara served with the plate more closely resembled tomato sauce. The Crispy Brussels Sprouts... well... they were soggy.

Presentation

The dishes were served clean, with garnishes resembling something of a modern spin on a standard dish. Between the 3 drinks that were brought to the table, none contained a garnish, and none of them looked appealing whatsoever. The Lemon Drop was served in a martini glass that looked like it had been purchased from hobby lobby, and 'The Danley' was served in a low-ball that seemed just a little too low, and the liquid glowed an unsettling florescent-green color.

Price

All of the entree selections were priced between $12-$20, which is moderate for the location of this venue and for the amount of food we saw our neighboring tables receive, but probably not for the quality. The cocktails were priced between $9-$12, which is typical for this geographical location.

Spirits

For a venue this size the selection was extremely limited. Four cocktails on tap, 6 specialty hand-crafted cocktails, and typical beer and wine choices. My wife ordered a Lemon Drop, which arrived completely watered down. We informed the waitress and she promptly replaced it, informing us that she "saw the bartender pour way too much Lemon Deep Eddy's Vodka in it" and it should be WAY stronger now. It was, but it was still Deep Eddy's Lemon Vodka. I ordered 'The Danley': a tequila drink with an all-too-predictable twist, which tasted far cheaper than it sounds.

Gluten Friendly

The menu indicates that it has Gluten Sensitive options therein, marked with a GS symbol next to the dishes name. However, there were NO items with this symbol on the entire menu, even on items that are inherently gluten-free. When we asked if the Crispy Brussels Sprouts had gluten within the cider glaze, the waitress had to ask the kitchen, which is totally great! What's NOT great, is that she returned telling us that she was sorry, that we could not have that item because the glaze contained Corn Starch. This tells us that neither the wait staff, nor the kitchen, had any training on...

My company hosted a happy hour at this venue, and it was a rough experience. We had the event planned over a month in advance which we thought would give them enough time to plan and prepare or even cancel if they weren't ready. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

A few of us arrived early to make sure they didn't need anything from us/to see how set up was going. When we arrived, the staff was confused and not helpful with answering questions or finding the organizer, Nicole. We rented out the upstairs area, so we decided to see how it was set up for our group. 30 minutes prior to the event and there were still various furniture laying around and the set up we needed (table for food, temporary bar) was not ready. Also, a manager meeting was taking place in 1/3 of the space we needed until 20 minutes prior to.

15 minutes before event: Nothing was set up. Just met the manager, Steve, and were promised that we would be taken care of even though nothing was ready yet.

5 minutes to event: None of the food for 70 people or the alcohol service we requested was set up including the finger foods area.

10 minutes INTO the event: We have a table for the buffet, some plates, napkins and the vegetable trays have been put out. picture attached to show what it looked like for 30 minutes for 70 people

20-30 mins into the event: We decided to express our concern to Steve, the manager, as we were disappointed that the staff wasn't being helpful, and the event manager, Nicole, seemed to be working on other things instead of helping with our event. Steve addressed us with a lot of push-back and defensiveness. He was persistently pointing his finger at everything saying things like "if I had known this event was happening, I would have cancelled it" and "we didn't know you were taking the upstairs area." The things he was pointing out could have been worked out if he had known the event his employee booked and if he had reviewed our contract.

40 minutes into our 2-hour event and food has been set up finally and our employees are able to eat.

We were given some extra food for our employees to have which was nice and would have warranted a 2-star rating overall for this experience but the way the staff treated and talked to us knocked it down to 1-star. We are pretty laid back but being met with intensity and aggression instead of apologizing and working hard to better the experience put a bad taste in our mouths. Upon asking for a customer service line I was given the VP of the company’s email and my inquiry was never addressed and we had to pay the original contracted price for the event. We wanted this venue to be fantastic and super cool but at this point we will not be returning. As a local, I will not be recommending...

We just had the worst experience at Sidecar tonight, and it was mainly because of our horrible waitress Daisy. I hope she was just having a bad day because jesus christ. We went in on a Friday night around 6:30 and were immediately seated on the patio. We both ordered an All-Out Hurricane and it was disgusting. Waste of $10. We ordered the mozzarella bites and ahi tuna nachos, and that quite literally was the only positive part of our experience here. Our waitress took at least 20-30 minutes in between each visit to our table and only saw us about 3-4 times. we had to ask to order our food. in doing so, i ordered a side mediterranean salad that was listed as $6 on the menu. a different person brought out our food and we waited another 20 minutes after getting it to ask Daisy for salt, pepper, sauces, etc. so we could eat. we ordered the short rib entree and the blackened shrimp pasta. short rib was good but potatoes were dry and tasteless. pasta was not worth it and didnt taste very good. we had to ask Daisy multiple times for the waters we asked for. she finally brought them as we were done with our meals and asking for togo boxes. when she brought our checks, mine had the full mediterranean chopped salad on it, so i pointed it out to her and asked her to correct it to the $6 side one i had ordered. her response was "yeah but they brought you a full sized one, right?" i informed her i wasnt sure because it was my first time there so i didnt know the sizes of each of their salads, but i originally ordered a side so i assumed thats what they brought. she insisted that since i had packed my salad in the togo that she was still charging me for the full priced salad i didnt order. i asked for a manager. she reluctantly said okay and didnt come back for another 15 minutes. when she came back, she claimed "i didnt have time for a manager so i just took it off" even though you have to have a manager to remove or comp items on any food industry POS. when i looked it over and handed her my cash she looked me up and down and said "we good?" as i looked very confused and said "yes? id like my change though." she rolled her eyes and came back with my incomplete change another 20 minutes later. we were there for 3 hours.... and...