55 Southern Stone — Restaurant in Bloomington

Today was the second time that we tried eating at Sweetgrass. The first experience we had was a few days ago. The service was not the greatest, as we had to wait a pretty significant amount of time for our waitress to come back to our table so that we could ask for straws. We also didn't get asked about a refill or even see our waitress to request one until she brought us our check. Her presence was very minimal, really only showing up to take our original order, bring our first round of drinks, then our food. While we were a bit disappointed in the service, we tried to be understanding. She did have another table or two I believe although the restaurant itself wasn't very busy. Even though we weren't thrilled with the service, the food was phenomenal. I had one of the best black bean burgers I've ever eaten. Because of this, we decided to give it another try this afternoon. We came around 2 this time. When we got there, we were seated pretty quickly. We asked to go ahead and order our food when our waitress was getting our drink order because we knew what we wanted and knew it might take a bit for the food to be prepared. Our waitress was nice enough and told us that she absolutely could go ahead and take our order. She had given us water but we were waiting for our tea and Coke that we had ordered to come out. Waiting is definitely fine an expected so we weren't too concerned. Our waitress had another table outside with us that was sitting adjacent to our table and she was attending to them as they were almost finished at that point. We waited and waited patiently, understanding that she was helping them with their bill, to go boxes, and cleaning up. She also may have had other tables inside as there had been a few people when we walked through earlier. We continued waiting but began to become a bit frustrated after almost 35-40 minutes of not getting our ordered drinks and not seeing our waitress after she finished up the neighboring table. We were the only ones outside at this point. We waited a bit longer, as we thought the food should be out any moment. It wasn't until about 15 minutes later that our waitress popped back outside and told us she would bring us our drinks right away. She brought them out about 5 minutes later. We requested to just go ahead and have the food boxed up and for the check because we were ready to leave at that point. She said that she could do that and was sorry that it was taking a long time. She mentioned something about shift changes making the restaurant hectic. I can totally understand that as well. However, we waited another 10 minutes or so for her to come back with the boxed up food. We had ordered a black bean burger and a pimento cheese burger which definitely shouldn't have taken almost an hour to make. Thankfully, they gave us 50% off our meal which was appreciated. We still gave our waitress a decent tip even though we barely saw her during this hour plus experience. When we finally got our food and the check paid, we got up to walk through the restaurant back to the car. There was absolutely NO ONE inside besides 3 people sitting at the bar. One of the waitresses was cleaning windows and another was cleaning off tables. I really am not one to be upset by service at restaurants even if it's not the greatest but this was beyond frustrating to me. Perhaps the order wasn't put in or maybe the shift change really does make a difference but there is no reason why our waitress wouldn't have been able to let us know that the food would take longer than normal or at the very least bring our drinks. Or even just come and check on us at all within that 45 minutes we waited at first. The additional 30 minute wait was also frustrating at that point. Like I said before, the food is phenomenal but we were VERY disappointed with the service, not once, but both times we've eaten there. This is probably one of the worst experiences I have had...

Absolute worst dining experience! I usually don't leave negative reviews. I usually find something positive to say about every place I visit, but that was not possible for this experience. First, it was IU graduation weekend, so the restaurant was busy. Moreover, their reservation system overbooked the place (some conflict between two reservation sites). However, we lucked out & our reservation was OK. We got seated at 8:30 for our 8PM reservation. Second, it took quite a bit of time for the waitress to bring our drinks to us after she took our starters & drinks order. Then the appetizers were delivered to the wrong table & I had to wave the server over to bring them to my table. The waitress never gave us silverware or napkins. When I asked for napkins, she brought us just napkins & still no silverware. We ended up eating the apps with our fingers (mussels & waffle fries with sticky honey sauce). Third, the waitress didn't come back to take our dinner order until about 10:30PM. We did see her busily bringing drink order after drink order to an outside seating table, though. Then the food seemed to never materialize despite seeing the waitress keep bringing drinks to that outside table multiple times as we waited for our food. In the end, we decided to settle the tab at the bar and leave without getting our dinner, because the waitress never came back to our table for us to even ask where our food was. The wait staff found her and when she heard from us why we were leaving, we did not get charged for our 2 rounds of drinks or the 2 appetizers that were served (to the wrong table at first...). There's no way the restaurant could've expected us to pay after the service we received. A real pity as the restaurant is decorated nicely and is very inviting. The menu is very nice, too, but in hindsight, it may be too good to believe that so many choices could be served at good quality (scallops, sea bass, steak, jambalaya, mussels, burgers & on & on...) Not surprisingly, we saw & heard about similarly disappointing reviews...

Where do I start? We pre-paid $60 a person for a pre-fixe graduation dinner, but when we sat down we were handed menus that said GRADUATION in all caps and prices listed next to each item. Entrees ranged from $18-40. We were informed that our prix fixe only covered an entree (“and salad!” our waiter kept saying off our dumbfounded expressions). Let me be clear, this side salad rivaled the disappointment of an airplane meal: seven pieces of limp spring mix and three cucumbers. No appetizer or desert or drink included? At that price? Several of us ordered hot tea—we were seated outside per our reservation even though it was rainy and our 85 year old grandparents were shivering. They were “fully booked” indoors, you see ...only....they weren’t. We came in to use the restroom and could see through the window. Several already socially-distanced tables were empty. Hmmm. But back to the tea. The water arrived luke warm. My black tea wouldn’t even steep. I asked for hotter water and our poor waiter brought me another cup. “This is as hot as it gets” he said apologetically as he set another cup in front of me. Several of us ordered steak defensively—it’s the most expensive on the menu at just under $40. If we were getting gouged, at least we’d try to get something “fancy.” It arrived, gray, limp, and poorly rendered. The bill cam and looked all wrong. They charged us for the grandparent that couldn’t make it even though they said they’d refund us. Another $60 down the drain. My father in law was convinced that there was just a break down in communication and went to speak to the General Manager. But no, this was all intentional. “You were given the wrong menu” with the prices was the only explanation offered. This meal was certainly memorable but not for a reason you’d want. Thank you for being the worst part of our celebration. Oh and a word of advice: don’t hand out two menus at the front—one for suckers and one for the regulars. The suckers just...