Social — Restaurant in Birmingham

My boyfriend and I are usually big fans of Social. I have no idea what was happening last Thursday, but it was a mess. The restaurant wasn’t too busy when we arrived and we happily waited to get a table cleared off on the roof. The host then told us to head up and that we’d know what table was ours. Odd, but whatever. We get up there, there’s no clean tables that aren’t taken so we take ourselves back downstairs to the host stand. They apologize and say that someone took our table while we were walking up. Okay whatever, they finally clear off a table for us. We wait a little bit, get waters and are informed by our server that he will be back to get our drink orders in a few. We wait 10 minutes and don’t see him at all. At this point, we realize that he’s not only the only server on the roof, he is also the only bartender and it doesn’t look like there’s a busser. We give him the benefit of the doubt and decide that we’ll probably have more luck getting timely service downstairs, so we head downstairs (again). We probably should’ve just headed to another restaurant at this point.

The hosts apologize for the service on the roof and give us a nice table by the bar. The bartender is our server and we get our first cocktail (finally). After we get our drinks, we don’t see the bartender again until we’ve finished them. We are starving and have been there for over an hour at this point. We decide to cut our losses and ask to check out. In defense of the restaurant and bartender, we did get our drinks comped and didn’t have to pay.

With all that, I think the most disappointing part was that (who I am assuming is) the manager walked past us around 20 times and did not check in once. He saw us sitting at two different tables, sitting with empty drinks, and walked past us for over an hour (!) and did not once ask how our experience was going. I worked in fine dining for years and just could not believe that he did not step in to grab an order or at least ask if we needed anything.

I want to note that both servers we dealt with seem like they are probably great servers/bartenders, but there was no way they could successfully do their job with the lack of support staff or management. As you can tell by the length of my review, we are severely disappointed and don’t know if...

TLDR : I coudn't even try the food to write a review as it was over an hour wait needed with a half full restaurant. If you have plans for after brunch and you're deadset on coming here, cancel your plans and expect to sit for a while. Good luck!

Social has been on top of my brunch lists for quite some time as it has been recommended by multiple people time and time again.

I'm here to tell you, that Social Kitchen & Bar did not come close to meeting my standard at all...it actually set a standard for me of what not to accept when going out to eat.

For starters, we came to Social at a reasonable time, post Sunday Church Brunch hours, and were met with a very nice greeting from the hostess.

Once seated, we were met by our server, who we believe had many other tables both on the main floor but also on the upper level. We were greeted by her and then did not see her for ~15-20 mins to give us waters and explain the menu.

After another 15 mins went by, she returned, took our orders and left.

This is where the already mediocre experience became a downhill. Our sever was gone for over 45mins, the food never arrived, and once two skillets were presented in our face, they were quickly removed and placed on another table with the server saying "whoopsie, that's not for you, haha."

After another 10 mins, we made a deal that if the food did not arrive within 8 mins, we would have left. Low and behold, the food arrived. Please brace yoursevles for this.

We, as a party of 3, ordered : Salad with Seared Chicken Skillet with Chicken (x2)

The salad came out and the chicken was cold. Once asked about the cold chicken, we received attitude to "hand it over" and then the person who did so took it and left. Upon inspection of our skillets, we were utterly shocked. Both skillets with Chicken did not have the protein and the food was not warm.

The picture attached to this review is also here to show the $3 addition of having the avocado added, this is only a sliver of what was expected.

After all of this, I'll leave it with this : Unless you have nothing else going on that day, or you want to waste a lot of time instead of being home, please go to Social. If you don't, I'd reccommend reconsidering coming to this...

OMG! This is probably the dirtiest spot I have encountered post-pandemic. Every dish served to my table was dirty. I mean with stuck on crud. Are they using a 3 compartment sink, rather than a dishwasher? Is no one actually scrubbing the dishes? Even the place mats for the skillets were noticeably dirty. The bar area was full of gnats and flies. It was unbearable, constantly having to swat away pests. I watched as flies landed on uncovered glasses and equipment at the bar. Somebody is going to get very sick here. Forget about Covid (no masks, no concern, clearly) but lest we forget about food borne illnesses? That's still a thing, no? I think the culprit is a lack of deep cleaning. Once I started paying attention, I think the bar equipment is not being pulled out and the area thoroughly cleaned. Spilled drink and food is attracting pests and there is no mechanism in place to address. There are lots of plants, but you can tell they are not being moved and the floors swept. The Social Kitchen is so busy, but that is no excuse for the lack of attention to infection control standards and kitchen sanitation. The Manager's name "D" was busy but seemed grossly unconcerned. He seems to be doing a lot of the work rather than actually managing. This is so disappointing because it didn't used to be this way. The staff works really hard but this is a situation of poor management. So what about the food? The gnats were so-so, could have been seasoned better. Won't be back, I don't need the "bubble guts. Sorry. Somebody has to say something. I still left a tip though...Not the...