Lingering Shade Social Club — Restaurant in Atlanta

I really wanted to love Lingering Shade. The manager, Spencer, is amazing—friendly and top notch service. Their atmosphere, cocktails and wine list are amazing. The lite bites are great. But on my 4th visit with a friend, we encountered the weirdest experience and the rudest server I have ever encountered. We sat at the bar and ordered a bottle of red wine…I ordered it at room temp because they generally refrigerate the red wine (don’t get me started on that, but whatever). The server said, “No, we only serve our wine chilled”. Whaaat? We were sort of confused. I mean, I know some people like their red wine cold…it’s not “proper” but to each his own, right? But to have a policy of only serving it cold?!? I argued with him a little bit and then we ordered a bottle of white. Before he uncorked the white, I asked again, “I can see the bottle of red that we wanted over on the shelf. Can’t we just have that, since we’re buying a whole bottle?”. The server rolled his eyes, and gave us a snotty response like I was stupid…” WE ONLY SERVE OUR RED WINE COLD”. Now, that should have been the end of it, but a few weeks later I decided to go back. Mostly because I love Spencer and the atmosphere. The last time was probably just a fluke (I had gotten a bottle of red at room temp on a previous visit). Much to my chagrin, the same server seated us and the whole issue came up again. He was not serving us room temp red wine. And, he was extremely rude and condescending about it. Now, this is not “chilled to a perfect 65 degrees” red wine…it is cold, refrigerated red wine. How can a bar with such an amazing wine list only serve cold red wine? How can whoever curated that fantastic wine menu allow those lovely wines to sit in a refrigerator? It is so bizarre!! And, even if the owner really loves cold wine and wants to keep it in the refrigerator, if someone is ordering a bottle, why would you refuse to serve it to them at the proper temperature?!? Most importantly, why is that rude, condescending server still working there?!? If you love cocktails and white wine, this place is for you. And I guess avoid Tuesday afternoons when “Mr Fancy-Pants How Dare You Question My Weird...

Overall extremely poor execution on a great idea. Our experience was just plain bad. The menu, which only contains a selection of six hors d’oeuvres, was underwhelming and three of the items were unavailable. They were out of two (at 5pm on a Friday?) and the third had been discontinued because they admitted that people had not liked it. The service was inattentive. After an unenjoyable cocktail and appetizer, we were anxious to leave and go to one of the better establishments in the area, but it took forever to track down our server. We finally got her attention and attempted to pay, but when she came back to the table with our check and card we discovered that she had ran our card for someone else’s (much larger) bill. We sat at our table without food or drink for an additional thirty minutes while she and her manager tried to sort it out. We received zero apology or concession from management for the mix-up; the least they could have done was comped the drinks.

If recent closings on the Beltline are any indication (The Cockentrice etc), ideal location is not enough to keep a restaurant afloat. Lingering shade either needs to get it together quickly, or I expect they won’t be...

I had hoped to go to Lingering Shade for the first time. That hope was quickly squashed. My two friends and I walked in, there were two people partially blocking the doorway but had let us past them. As were were about to approach the bar one of the people that was blocking our path before ran to stop us from going to the bar and asked, “Did you want to drink here?” We of course said yes, not knowing who he was. He said everything was full and we got the feeling that he wanted us to leave. After a few awkward moments he said if we did want to stay we could go to the patio. It seems like a harmless exchange, except, they made the moment more awkward, unprofessional, and unwelcoming than they needed to. The two people that worked there saw us walking in and they could have greeted us in a friendly manner and told us they only had patito seating. Instead the staff was bickering/fighting and ignoring the guests and then getting mad at us for wanting get a drink and give them money. AITA?? I always got a weird vibe from this place and now it’s confirmed and I...