Brink's Tavern — Restaurant in Aiken County

As we absolutely love Brinkley's Chop House, the upscale steakhouse in North Augusta's stadium area, we were excited to see how their exceptional DNA would show itself in a more approachable, casual restaurant. The location is a great start, anchoring the wonderful new multi purpose area of downtown North Augusta where a dilapidated building stood for decades. It has covered outdoor seating with a view of the courtyard. A welcome change from most local al fresco dining that looks at a street. Inside, the atmosphere is decidedly sports bar, but with an uptown vibe. Incredibly comfortable, mildly bolstered leather chairs and padded benches that impressed my wife, being comfy and 'the perfect height.' There are plenty TVs, but only on one side of the dining room and at the central bar. It was quiet when we arrived, with only a dozen or so guests. By the time we left, about 7pm, it was buzzing and almost too loud for light conversation, but not uncomfortable. The menu is a wonderful frustration, full of imaginative items making decisions hard. Many Cajun dishes, Southern cuisine and even a genuine seaside raw bar menu that is so welcome in this area, including 4 seafood towers! If you must have a burger, there are ten examples, not including the burger of the day. Do check out the menu before you arrive or be prepared to order an extra drink for the time you'll need trying to decide. Our server came back three times before we were ready to order. Glad we did order an app immediately, well-seasoned homemade pork rinds with a delicious spiced queso fundido. I finally decided on what to get by using my favorite 'new restaurant' method; I ordered whatever made me smile when I read the description. I love boudin, and the Boudin Balls were obviously on the menu just for me. Another item delighted me so much I actually laughed out loud; I have created and served many varieties of baked oysters, but there was no way I was not ordering the Cornbread and Chorizo Butter Stuffed Oysters. This chef knows what I like. Both dishes had me smiling until the last bite-and yes, I did share with my wife. She had the Shrimp Aqua Chile Verde, a dish we enjoy at our favorite Playa Mujeres resort. It was just as fresh and lively, but at $18 we expected more than 3 medium shrimp. We wanted to order more but our items were so rich there was no room. I will be back for the homemade voodoo potato chips and the gumbo with duck confit I had my eyes on. There are only 2 restaurants in town that I feel make gumbo with the correct roux and I bet there are now 3. Okay, now for the thorns of the rose. First is the price point. Higher than others in this category, but they aren't this nice. The other is the service. When we arrived, there were 3 servers at the host stand, one left as we walked up without acknowledging us. The other 2 were busy and after a bit said someone would be right with us. Another server came up, typed on an iPad and left without saying a word. I saw 4 servers chatting at a nearby servers station but couldn't get their attention and finally flagged down a server across the room. I know five minutes being ignored at the host stand isn't that long but it's five minutes too long with idle staff everywhere. Our server was very unprepared, not being able to give information on any item we asked about and uncertain about the specials descriptions. She accidentally allowed one of the boudin balls to roll off the plate across the table when she served them. When we were asking about one of the items, the manager walked by so our server asked to her, who gave us an uncertain answer which turned out to be wrong when delivered. But... After seated attention was excellent and everyone we did speak to had an incredible attitude and energy. Recently opening gives them a pass on some learning issues, and I believe you cannot teach attitude, you have to hire it. They will surely learn the information and procedures soon. Once this refinement takes place the Brinks Tavern experience will bring guests back again and again. I will be...

I’ll start off by saying I still have high hopes for brinks tavern in the future as I know it’s only been a month since they opened. However having a fully operational restaurant at your disposal during the early stages I would have hoped the food was a little better. Let’s start with the positives: Aaron the bartender was 🔥🔥. Personable, quick and he knew his drinks. Best white tea shot we have had in a while. Atmosphere was electric as the Georgia/Tenn game was on the big screen and it was a great game and people were very much into it. ( the atmosphere I expected ) Poutine was the star of the show (unfortunately). Great flavors, lots of Tasso, and shrimp. Now on to the not so great parts: Wings were bland even with the amazing blue cheese foam. Just unseasoned chicken under it all. And if I’m getting wings watching a game give me real celery. Celery should not be a garnish for wings. Coconut “leche de tigre”. Missed just about every mark. Thick coconut “tigre”sauce that coated the tuna and 3 half pieces of shrimp. Usually when we have a leche de tigre there is some sort of thinner sauce on the plate and it’s served with some sort of chip to use as a vessel. I questioned where the corn was and did not really get a response but as you see in the pic the couple next to us got a tigre with corn AND radish on it.(second pic was theirs)Completely different than what we got. Mussels were overcooked and small. The broth was great and was surprised when I got home and was only given the broth Togo from my mussels( no sweat as it would not have been eaten). But the bread was really good with the dish Millionaire bacon - strange plating as we were given a board with 3 ramekins with nothing but old dish water in them. Saw another board go out that had little spots for the eggs but I guess they had 6 spots but only 5 eggs. Bacon was delicious, eggs were good butt why the plating? Those ramekins get used for nothing and then washed and not even dried before sent out with nothing in them. Overall it was fun and I will be back. But with the amazing restaurants behind this spinoff I feel like the trials and errors should be much less than what experienced. Also just for an fyi we were quoted a 3 hour wait time for a walk in at 4pm unless we wanted to sit at bar. We are bar people so that was no problem. However I watched as 4 tables were not sat for the entirety of the 4 hours we were there. Saturday with college football it’s hard for me to accept that you didn’t have enough servers.

Like I said at the beginning I will be back and I will hopefully chop most of it up to newly opened. I just hope that they take the criticism that people give them and look at it with positivity and understand that people want great places to eat. We will see you soon and hopefully the kinks...

My husband and I have patronized this establishment 3 times since they’ve opened. The first time was spot on! 10/10 service, food, drinks and atmosphere. We ordered the calamari, fried shrimp platter, the shrimp and grits, the Crabby Pattie and Espresso Martinis. The second time wasn’t as great as before but it wasn’t bad either. We stood at the hostess stand waiting to be seated for about 5 minutes before we were finally told that we needed a reservation and that it would be about 15-20 minutes before we would be seated due to the hostess not wanting to overload the servers. Okay, I get it. No problem. Once seated, we ordered the same exact thing, but wanted to try the crab fondue which was disgusting; but everything else was pretty good. Tonight, we decided to try Brinks again for the 3rd time and boy did they miss the mark. We didn’t have a reservation, but we didn’t think we needed one after seeing how empty the parking lot was. Upon arrival, I was asked for my first and last name as well as my phone number before my husband and I could be seated. I found this to be strange. But okay. After being seated, our server, Brandin, came over to get our drink order. You guessed it, we both ordered espresso martinis again. It took a while for Brandin to come back with the drinks. Being that the restaurant was pretty empty, the wait time was kind of unexpected. Finally received our drinks and we proceeded to order. For apps, we got mozzarella sticks and for our entrees, we got a fried shrimp platter and the shrimp and grits. This is where things really took a turn. The mozzarella sticks came out and they were barely warm. The cheese came completely out of the breading. They were horrible and we could not eat them. My husband’s fried shrimp platter wasn’t any better. The batter on his shrimp were soft, patchy, and falling off of the shrimp. The fries were old and cold. The gravy on my shrimp and grits had so much oil in it, you could see the oil sitting on top. The shrimp had tails on them which they didn’t have the tails on them the previous time. I had to literally pick the shrimp out, cut the tails off and put them back in the bowl. Our server, Brandin came back to the table and my husband asked for a Coke. 10 minutes had passed and still no Coke. Brandin finally comes back to our table without the Coke. We asked for the check and he apologized for forgetting the Coke. We were highly disappointed especially after spending $100 and nothing was good or edible. Normally there’s a manager walking around asking about the service. Tonight that wasn’t the case. I saw not one manager. I don’t know if Wednesday nights are typically their slower nights and they aren’t staffing their best staff on Wednesdays, I don’t know. But I expected so much more than what I...