Neil St. Blues — Restaurant in Champaign

I really loved this restaurant, but the owner is rude as hell. I had an issue with my order, I order the rib tip basket with fries, spaghetti with the add on of turkey sausage. I got the same thing the previous day and there was no problem, everything was perfect. Except this time they gave me a way smaller container than the day before and it looked and tasted like hot dogs instead of turkey sausage. I had to pick all the “sausage” out, which was a waste of $2. I then called the next day, because by the time I got home they were closed, to make them aware of the issue, not being rude or anything, and informed them that I had a picture. The manager I talked to agreed to give me a $7 credit, and I thought that was the end. I was planning on coming back today to order again, but an hour later I get a call back from the same manager saying the owner denied the $7 credit. I requested to speak to her & offered to send them the picture. When the owner got on the phone I was extremely nice and listened with her without interrupting, however she couldn’t afford me the same respect. Her attitude was nasty and she was extremely combative. She kept declining to even look at the picture saying, “ I buy everything in here no picture can convince of me what you talking about”, being rude, and not listening. She then offered to give me a $5 credit, which was pointless because why tell your manager you didn’t want to give me the credit? At that point I was shocked, and not about to argue, so I politely declined, told her I didn’t like her attitude, and I would not be supporting her business anymore. The food is amazing, the manager was amazing, but the owner needs to work on her attitude. I’ve also attached the picture, you tell me if this looks like turkey sausage...

I will start with the positive. When my party and I walked in we were welcomed warmly by several staff. The restaurant decor during the day seemed a bit blah, but I’ve been several times during the evening and it’s a vibe!We definitely felt welcomed and happy to be there for the Sunday brunch. We were seated and our waitress came right away. She explained how Sunday brunch worked and asked what we wanted to drink. She was very polite and thorough. So time to visit the buffet! The buffet had a pretty good variety of foods for brunch and I was so excited. The food look great and smelled great. So I wanted to try everything, and developed a plan of action! talk about DISAPPOINTING! The fish was SALTY as if they seasoned it and used seasoned breading. The chicken didn’t taste fresh like it had been fried the day before. Maybe old grease?The grits were very gritty and not creamy. The eggs were hard due to it sitting for a while. The Mac and cheese had so much oil I tilted my plate to dab it off with a napkin. I enjoyed the greens and corn bread muffins. I really wanted to like the dressing, the flavor is there. It was smooth a creamy just EXTREMELY SALTY. I mixed it with cranberry sauce and just prayed my BLOOD PRESSURE WILL BE OK. The bbq ribs and chicken were salty,spicy and sweet overall not pleasant! I was fine with the desert options but it just tasted like slice cake from Walmart. For the price of this Sunday brunch I expected for the food to be way better! I’ve been here before a few times back in 2019 and the food was not salty but not always great either. I’ve had times where my food was really good, but I can’t let this Sunday brunch slide. For $30+ I should have eaten more than 1.5 plates. Salty salty salty! I hear sat is better maybe I’ll...

My overall recommendation is to avoid this place. The atmosphere is decent, but the food and service were mediocre at best.

I had ordered the chili and a yardbird sandwich. The chili was okay, but too salty, and the sandwich was quite a bit underseasoned. My friend ordered the Blues Burger cooked medium, but it came out more well done, which made it much tougher and harder to eat. Another friend also ordered a fried shrimp po boy which was so salty it was actually inedible. This may have been a one off experience but everything we ordered, with the exception of a salad, was either over or under seasoned.

The service was also mediocre. When we arrived, we were led to a table that had not been cleared yet, so we had to wait a few minutes for it to be cleared. This is not a huge issue, and is normally one I would overlook. After we sat down, the waitress took our drink orders and nearly everyone at the table got water. However, it took an extremely long time for the drinks to come despite being such simple orders, and given that there were not many other patrons in the restaurant. Then after we ordered, the food also took forever to come out. It was at least 20 minutes for even the soups to come. Then after we had started eating the entrees, our waitress did not even stop to check up on us. My friend who ordered the salty shrimp po boy was out of water for around 10 minutes before the waitress finally came and refilled our drinks.

Overall, our group of 6 spent $25 per person and over two hours of our time for mediocre-to-indelible food, underwhelming service, and a generic atmosphere. It left all of us with a bad taste in our mouths and we would not...