Southern Sun Pub & Brewery — Restaurant in Boulder

I'm so mixed on Southern Sun. The food is OUTSTANDING. The servers are lovely people, the beers are solid, diverse and reliable.

But the management decisions on how to run the place - everything in cash, everything added up and written down by hand - are so bad that every single visit, when I leave I feel SO ANNOYED, even after good beers and great food.

I cannot understand (and I've thought about it a lot - there's plenty of time to think while you wait) how the time spent doing everything by hand, re-tallying bills that are incorrect (I've seen my share), giving the same cash-only speech to customers that you've seen 100 times, manually writing orders that are usually made right but sometimes wrong, all of that meaningless work adds up to less than 2.5% for the owners in opportunity cost.

It takes forever to get a total and head out the door. It takes forever to get change, to order, to go to the ATM if it's not busted, forever to do everything - because everything is required to be done the slowest way possible, by people who are working their butts off against the crazy machine. The whole process is insane.

And from a business perspective, all that lost time is lost people enjoying food and beers. It's lost customers who say, "I'd love to go to Southern Sun and grab a burger, but I don't have two full hours." It's lost satisfaction because they've decided to make the main thing being cash-only, not their food, drink and service. It's like they don't want to run their business well, or the whole thing is a front for some other endeavor.

It is 2024. Not 1974. 2024. In the past 50 years, we've developed new and wonderful ways to make lists and do addition besides the pen and paper.

I would bet huge money that Southern Sun would have happier customers, lower overhead, and a more thriving business if they'd just accept credit cards. Maybe even delve all the way into wireless ordering like Osaka's or Avery. There are good, simple tools that make your customers and your employee's lives better, and won't break your hippy souls. I promise.

Please, Southern Sun. Please...

Southern Sun generally has really good food and it is usually enough to makeup for the consistently mediocre-to-poor service, but it finally crossed the point where I don't think I need to bother with it.

I went in with my kids at 4:45 for an early dinner while in the area. We had someone take a drink order right away, but it was a full 10 minutes to get 1 beer, 1 juice and 3 waters. And the beer is the wrong beer. Another 10 minutes for a different server to visit the table and take our food order - a few burgers and an extra large fry as an appetizer because the kids are hungry. I ask for the right beer and 5 minutes later that comes - meaning it is 25 minutes from when I enter a nearly-empty restaurant to when I have my drink.

Fast forward 10 minutes more and my kids are understandably getting frustrated from being hungry. I give up waiting for the fried (15 minutes since ordering) and go up to the bar to ask for the fries. 5 minutes more and they are finally there. Unsurprisingly, the burgers come just a few after that making the appetizer not an appetizer but a side.

After all that, the burgers have stale buns and are overcooked. Fries were still good though.

Fast forward another ~20 minutes and I am able to flag a server for the check. They have charged me twice for beers - the wrong one they brought initially and the corrected one both.

Since I have to eventually get out of there, I just leave cash without it ever being corrected.

The team serving thing just does not work. At the best of times, it is "fine" - it is never good here. 10 years ago the food made up for that, but there are too many places in Boulder now to put up with the awful service of...

I visited Under the Sun with my family for a final meal before they closed, as we had enjoyed the place in the past. Unfortunately, what we encountered was beyond shocking. While waiting to put our names on the waitlist (about an hour), Kevin, the owner, walked by and told us, "This is not going to work, she's here," referring to my three-year-old who was simply standing in his way. At first, I thought I misheard, but when he came back and saw her in the same spot, he completely lost it.

He started yelling at us to leave, saying, "Go to Illegal Pete’s, I don't want you here, leave now, you're never coming back." My daughter was so upset she started crying, asking, "What did I do wrong?" It was heartbreaking and enraging to see her treated this way. Kevin’s behavior was completely unhinged and uncalled for, targeting a three-year-old for just standing in his way. I was so furious that I spilled beer on the floor before we left.

If Kevin tries to say otherwise, I have the testimony of friends and others who were in line with us—I even grabbed their phone numbers just in case. Since I was able to put my number down, I also received a message from a horrified employee who contacted me last night, expressing their shock at what happened.

Additionally, I was Googling Kevin’s name last night and found a very concerning Reddit thread where he is allegedly accused of abusive behavior.

This was one of the most insane and disappointing experiences I’ve ever had at a restaurant. I cannot recommend this place—or any place owned by Kevin—based on how he treats his customers, especially children. Stay away from Southern Sun and Mountain Sun as well, as he owns...