Bar Bruno — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

This is the spot if you find yourself in Athens! The wine list is one of the best curated Italian selections on the East Coast- seriously, Bar Bruno is criminally overlooked in my opinion. The small plates, coffee drinks, spritzes and cocktails meet or exceed the expectations you might reserve for a restaurant in a much larger city. And the service and hospitality has been perfect across our 4-5 visits. We don’t live in Athens but have an occasion to be in the area a few times a year, and Bar Bruno is one of the things we look forward to most. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

On a side note, I have to address the reviewer who offered up a one-star review- all over an orange juice misunderstanding. We were the “two others” that were in the restaurant at the time (however, that reviewer and her family were only there 20-30 minutes and missed all the other happy guests that came and went), and we were only a few feet from her table. Long story short, she was incredibly entitled, loud, inconsiderate, and obnoxious (for instance her child thrashed loudly on the booth seat next to my wife while the mother took a FaceTime call, ruining the otherwise perfect atmosphere). I witnessed the orange juice being served in a standard size 8oz glass, not a “shot glass”. The owner even offered to walk across the street to buy some orange juice from a grocery store! Essentially, the only thing that might keep you from having a perfect time at Bar Bruno would be the misfortune of running into a...

Tonight was my first night visiting this establishment. It’s order at the counter and they setve your drinks and bring your food as it’s prepared. A little offputting that my water glass was filled from the same sink that looks like they may be doing dishes in. The wine was delicious and reasonably priced. The food was OK but nothing to get overly excited about. The most offputting thing for me was payment at the end. I was prepared to pay cash for my meal and was informed they did not accept cash only credit card payments. Nowhere was this posted in the menu or around the store. I did have a credit card available to pay, but it was not my preferred method of payment. I understand that some establishments will not accept cash, but that should be posted. For that reason, coupled with the overall taste of the food, I will...

Bar Bruno is greedy. I brought a cake by earlier in the day for a friend's birthday and was told there would be a $6 outside dessert fee per person, assuming it would be the number of people eating the cake. We came in with a large group later that evening for drinks and appetizers. I was the one that cut and served the cake and they still did an auto gratuity of 20%. Only a small number of us ate the cake, but we were charged for the entire group of people sitting at the bar. It turned into an $80 fee for me to cut and serve our own cake. Bartenders also were not friendly nor did they pay attention to our group sitting at the bar. Overall an extremely...