Black Market Bar+Grill (Avondale) — Restaurant in Birmingham

OK, where to begin, first and foremost, I had heard about this place by a bunch of people.

We have seen it several times as we go to concerts at Avondale Brewery.

The Atmosphere suggested this was going to be a dinning experience not just from a Vibe perspective, but also a culinary adventure. As a chef myself, I look forward to new taste and find myself longing for a new take on certain meals.

Even though this place was highly recommended, I'm afraid my personal experience was not what I had been told to expect.

First red flag, our server while prompt to take our drink orders, seemingly lost interest shortly after. We did get our non alcohol drinks fairly quickly, but the bar drinks were brought out later and not at the same time, which would have been fine, if that was only related to the drinks.

I ordered the Sampler type APP so I could try a variety of things on the menu all at one go. The pita chips were incredibly salty, but the hummus was great, the cheese sticks had more cheese out of them than in them pointing to over cooking, the onion rings were good, the pork empanada was pretty good, and the odd chicken egg roll was fairly good, but the chips and queso seemed to be basic, and eh. all around I give this app a 3.5 of 5, being saved by variety, but the overly salty pita kind of killed it.

Due to realizing our server hadn't returned for some time and knowing we were on a time crunch, I had to go inside and find her, I explained we would need to order the remaining items to-go because I needed to be back to our venue for a show I was producing. ( This is on me, and I explained that to her, letting her know I'm just running short on time. and they aren't exactly busy at this point)

She comes out, we have to explain how to cut up the checks (there were two of us paying) and we ordered.... we request her bring the checks back out so we could go ahead and pay, and that way we would only be waiting on the food.. Still this is on me because I understand I am changing the parameters.

I ordered the BBQ burger Med Rare, with sweet potato fries

My friend orders some nacho thing, and a pimento burger, with a cheese cake egg roll thing as a desert... all to go.

We ate our app, and finished our drinks, its been 20 minutes and still no server..

I walked back inside, and finally found her, she had just got our tickets printed so we could pay. I could clearly see two to go bags waiting in the hot window, and while assuming they were ours (Which they were) had to get the bartenders help to even get my food. Our serve seemed "somewhere else" mentally almost as if she forgot we ordered at all.

I tipped well, but realized once we got to our food I shouldn't have. My burger was very dry, mildly seasoned and way over cooked. I ended up tossing it in the trash, the sweet potato fries weren't bad, though I imagine fresh and on a plate would be far better than getting soggy in a to go container... that is on me.

My friends had about the same reaction as I did on their food, with the exception of the cheese cake thing they got, they seem to have loved that.

All in all, I am very unhappy knowing the money I spent verse the food I got, they are reasonably priced, but I could have spent that same 15 bucks on a far better burger.

Not sure if I will be back, this one left a sore...

Last night was the worse experience I've had there. If the experience could be negative, it would be. First and foremost, the young lady who was working the door has the people skills of a rock. She was rude and I've been there over 100 times and never was charged a cover, even with a band, and I do have over 5 years of bar experience. She was extremely rude. I told her I didn't have any cash on me and she said I could pay at the bar, cool, but I had to hand over my license, im cool with that, her attitude still sucked but ok.

Next. I will say the young man who sat us down, was a great server. He was nice and pleasant and you can tell he was handling the stress of the night well.

The waitress was disappointing. I told her that I needed to have the cover charge added onto my bill and she tried to correct me for the third time that night.

Let's forward to the end of the night. I get a phone call with my frantic daughter crying hysterically and all I could hear was accident. I get my bill. I walk out, with my check in hand and guess what, the waitress was so busy trying to correct me she didn't put it on the bill, even though she charged me a tip.

So I explain whats going on and the blond at the door said she didn't care and I had to go back to the bar to pay my tip.

So I go to the bar, all 5 people behind the bar ignore me for at least five minutes, and im yelling loud but they would rather have conversations with each other and tend to the people on the other end. So when I finally get someone's attention, the guy with the shoulder length hair, I tell him I need to pay for my cover and leave, he asks me do I wanna run a tab, I explain to him my kid was in an accident and I need to pay my cover and go. He acts like an a-hole and charges me tax for the cover.

This is the worse treatment, given the circumstances. I would not advise...

We passed through Birmingham, AL as part of our roadtrip around the South, and having checked into our hotel (Homewood Suites, which are also recommended), we went looking for food. There seemed to be a few good options around the area, but we landed on Black Market and boy, are we glad we did!

Not only was the food great (and very reasonably priced), the beer selection was great. We both had burgers which were delicious, although I'd recommend medium-rare over medium personally. I tried the IPA (Snakehead I think) which is brewed locally and it was good, albeit expensive at $12 for what seemed about 2/3rds of a pint... I assume some of the other beers might be cheaper.

We walked in and were greeted by Jacob, who then went on to seat and serve us. Incredibly friendly, very likeable guy who not only was flawless as a waiter, but was also very engaging to chat with. Even if he was horrified to discover that he'd got a pair of Redcoats at his table that had never had sweet tea before! I'll never forget either the speed or joy with which he rushed off to get us one to try, exclaiming he was going to tell all his friends!

Nor will I forget the look of confusion on his face when we explained about drinking a cup of tea in the 'English style', hot with milk - couldn't quite tell if he was astonished or disgusted!

To the owners of this bar - that guy is an absolute credit to your establishment! He made our visit a joy, when we had already been hugely pleasantly surprised by the entire city of Birmingham! I hope he enjoys the Yorkshire Tea bags we gave him... Make sure he tries it properly!

If we are ever fortunate enough to find ourselves in the lovely city of Birmingham again, we'd be sure to visit for more food and beer. And to find out if Jacob enjoyed a proper...