Paramount - Downtown Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

From the moment I had to lift and pull back the heavyduty 60lbs iron chairs I knew I wasn’t going to like it here too much. My girlfriend and I are visiting from mobile Alabama and wanted to try out the local food scene, and stumbled across the paramount restaurant. The venue is nice, the ambiance of the place was cool and visually pleasing. LOVE THE INDUSTRIAL LOOK!!. But here is where it started to go downhill.... Server had a really nonchalant “I don’t want to be here” attitude which felt uncomfortable. She served us water right after we sat down and walked away without giving us straws. Rushed us to order when we barely even pulled the menu up on our phones (Covid..lack of physical menus... I get it). After asking about the wings and flavors we made our order and patiently waited. Wings came out quick along with our basket of fries!!. My girlfriend’s BBQ wings were dry...like no sauce dry...like didn’t taste like any flavor at all dry....cooked well but DRY. My wings...the lemon wings....had shredded cheese on top of it, I guess to disguise the lack of flavor the wings were missing. I guess next time we’ll have to bring our own bottle of bbq and ranch if we want to enjoy our food next time. We’ve ordered the root beer floats to try to make up for the BLAND wings and boom dropped the ball again, root beer with a hint of ice cream (we’ll stick to Sonics for the floats). Last but not least...the basket of fries, they felt/tasted like they’ve been sitting under a heat lamp for a while and were too crunchy/hard. The restaurant has the looks and feel of great potential. DO...

We came here to have a few beers before a concert at the Alabama Theatre. The atmosphere was great & there were so many bartenders (or ppl behind the bar) they were almost walking on each other. The 1 star rating is because they dip the plastic cups & the glass glasses directly in the ice bins. If that doesn't make you feel some type of way then let me explain. First of all it's disgusting. At least 3 people have touched each glass in a rack of glasses. The dishwasher, the person that puts the glasses/cups up & the person making the drink. I'm not saying the bartenders are not washing their hands after they use the bathroom but they are constantly touching things the general public touches & the general public does not wash their hands like they should (generally speaking). Secondly, anyone that dips a glass glass (not plastic) into an ice bin is an idiot. If that glass chips then somebody is gonna get glass in a drink. If the glass breaks you have to burn the ice bin (clean all ice out & wash the bin out) & start over. I noticed almost all the people behind the bar dipped all the cups & glasses into the ice bins & used a scoop when putting ice in a shaker. I work in food service & I guess I'm a little bit of an ice Nazi but that should not be acceptable behavior in any restaurant or bar. I...

First, I have to throw out a big thank you to the manager Chelsea, she made my experience at Paramount. I am socially awkward and was challenged by a good friend to go to a bar and melt in with the crowd. We chose Paramount, primarily due to location. I arrived first and asked for a seat at the bar. I explained to Chelsea that I do not drink alcohol, and was interested in trying anything non alcoholic outside of softdrinks. Chelsea offered up several options, forgive me, in do not remember brands, but there was a spiced ginger and a ginger beer. Both were really great. In addition, I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. It was amazing. Mozzarella cheese and goat cheese, melted between two perfectly toasted sour dough bread slices. There was some sort of tomatoey paste in the sandwich and it really made the sandwich come together. Extremely Yummy. In addition, the bartenders were excellent. Attentive, friendly, and busy! Overall my experience was a great one both from atmosphere and food.

I wanted to especially thank Chelsea for making my experience an...