Local Station — Restaurant in Braselton

This was not our first time..... I have been for lunch with friends and had a decent salad with salmon as well as a dinner with hubby and some friends that was juat "ok" on another occasion with friends, but after tonight, do not believe we will be returning, as just not worth the money. We made reservations early in the evening for a table of four and were seated immediately. While we WERE seated immediately, we were placed at a table in a room that only had one other current table occupied and our table was positioned right next to an entryway, with a door, which folks and staff entered and exited thru to get to the rest of the restaurant. Everytime it was opened, we were treated to a VERY cold breeze/draft. (We weren't only ones cold as another patron asked if heat could be raised.) I think there were three other tables of four that were open and should have been accessed first. Others were seated eventually at said tables and it became so loud, we could barely hear each other on top of the music playing. (could have been lowered; too loud for a small room with low ceiling.) The waitstaff was very pleasant and accomodating and took all of our drink orders. We all placed our orders and my husband and I both ordered the Rib Eye steak. It came with two sides, one of which was already listed on the menu selection (mashed potatoes). I chose the Spinach and hubby ordered the Asparagus. Our biggest complaint is the temperature of the food when it came to the table. The meat was room temp which I understand steak is rested upon plating amd can't sit under any warming lamp with risk of the continuing to cook past tequested doneness, but sides should never be put on the plate until "ready" to deliver. The mashed potatoes looked like they had been put in a form of some kind and flipped onto the plate. As I stuck my fork into the potatoes, they were hard/crusted and cool, like they had sat at the pass-thru since the steak had come off the grill to "rest". I mean these were not creamy mashed potatoes, they were hard, dry, formed, stiff and cold potatoes, like refrigerator leftovers. The spinach was a very uninteresting pile of green leaves, cooked beyond what they should have been for that early in the evening and pretty tasteless. Spinach is one of my favorite veggies, but this serving would have made a spinach lover decide never to trust spinach "out" again! Very bland. Also the entire stalk/stem was still attached, not trimmed; making them harder to chew/swallow...not appetizing at all. My husband's asparagus was over cooked, and pretty tasteless as well. The steak was prepared correctly as ordered, and was a tender piece of meat and not too marbled, but nothing overly exciting in the taste department. I believe only thing I really tasted was pepper.....Since we were there with friends, we did not want to make a fuss to the mgmt. While I havent asked our friends how their meal was, I can not speak to their choices. (One finished their meal but the other did not.) Overall, just not worth the money for the evening........

My husband and I went last night for our anniversary. One of the first things we ere told was that they were out of charcuterie board and one of the drink specials and later learned they had no dessert. We ate at the restaurant on a Tuesday night at 5:30. It was sad to hear they were out of things. I have been told they do not have a freezer and everything is fresh, but still frustrating. We ordered the pimento cheese and pita for an appetizer and it did not disappoint. I have had it before and it is good every time.

I ordered the dinner special, which was decent. It was steak medallions, shrimp skewer, pimento green beans and roasted potatoes. The potatoes could have been cooked longer and shrimp more flavorful. The steak was good and cooked just right. The green beans were good, too.

My husband had ordered the Charleston shrimp and grits. When he got it, he thought it was to have a brown sauce, but his was red. He was eating his food and kept asking me if I could see the sweat coming off of his forehead. I asked him why and he said it was hot, spicy hot. I thought it was weird, because he does not choose spicy food. He went through 3 glasses of sweet tea and trounced through his meal. He made a comment about how there were not many grits and that they had the consistency of cornbread in chili. He sweat out the spicy of the meal then mentioned to me again that there were two types of grits and he thought he ordered the brown sauce.

When the server came back, I asked her what the other kind of grits were and she said the Charleston. She explained the difference between the two and I told her that he had ordered the Charleston . She noted that someone else brought him his meal, which they did. She came back with another tea refill and had checked what she put in the computer and said she put Charleston in the computer. That is where it ended. No good apologies, no manager to express his concern over the mistake and a disappointing twist to our anniversary dinner. My sweet husband suffered through the meal because that is how he is. He is not one to complain or get upset, but I noticed the frustration on his face and the extra disappointment when no one seemed to care that he was served the wrong meal. Whether we pay $15 or $80 for a meal, some kind of apathy would have been nice. Local Station has...

Despite there being a few open tables outside, we were told there would be a 40 minute wait. We were not asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside. The girl taking our name down did not smile at all. After waiting 40 minutes to be seated, we were seated in the very back of the restaurant which was a weird atmosphere - a small dining room with crowded tables and bright overhead lights. Not exactly the ambiance we were going for, but alright. We wanted to have a few cocktails and an appetizer before eating dinner. Well, we ordered drinks and it took over 20 minutes to get them, by which time we had mostly finished our charcuterie board (which, by the way, the price was not listed, but must have been expensive upon receiving our final bill). BTW, the charcuterie board consisted of meat, some cheese, some bread, grapes, french onion dip, pickled vegetables, and pickled pink eggs. Based on the pictures in the reviews, it seems like it varies daily so if you are a big charcuterie person, ask what's on it for that day to make sure you won't be disappointed.

I ordered the special of the day which was parmesan crusted salmon (also which must have been expensive based on our final bill, which I'll get to in a moment). Hubby got the cheeseburger and was not asked how he wanted it cooked. It was brought out later and was so overdone, it was not juicy or flavorful at all, which was a letdown because they had looked so good while we were waiting and we have not had a cheeseburger from a restaurant in such a long time. He and my friend both ordered different sides than the chips, but both received chips and the alternate sides. Is this why the bill was so expensive? We'll never know.

Overall our bill was $160 which included 2 cocktails ($30 together), 1 charcuterie board (mystery amount), 1 cheeseburger ($10), 1 dinner special (mystery amount), and a 20% tip. The charcuterie and dinner special must have been about $40 each. I feel that this was way overpriced for the subpar experience we had. I'm disappointed as we are new to the area and this was our first visit to Local Station. We could have gone to a nice steakhouse for this amount but instead received subpar food and service. After this experience I'm not sure if we'll ever return to Local Station, perhaps for cocktails only...