Square Bistro — Restaurant in Chardon

cannot say enough about how lovely and accommodating the staff was here for the surprise party i threw for my husband. they were amazing with communication leading up the event with calling me back or calling to confirm details about the party. they allowed me to come early if i wanted to drop stuff off, let me bring balloons etc, they even slightly extended the number of people i was originally allowed to have, etc. they even let me store an ice cream cake for the party. the surprise could not have gone better. everyone was in the loft and when we walked in we couldn’t see who was up there which was perfect. the hostess didn’t spoil it which i was worried might happen, she walked us up to the loft perfectly & he had no idea until we got all the way up there! she was so sweet as well and gave me a very sweet compliment. the food was great, the service was great, Jake was an amazing server. they were great at clearing the table often and not leaving it messy, and Jake brought out the cake at the perfect time without having to be asked. he even boxed it up for us to go when we were on our way out, we would have completely forgotten about it. he even took group photos for us. they were also not at all difficult about doing separate checks as a lot of restaurants tend to be. everyone raved about how they didn’t know about this restaurant but are so glad i chose it & how much they loved it. i’m so glad i chose them! thank you so much square...

The food was pretty good but, the atmosphere is odd. Very small and seating is awkward. It feels like you're sitting on top of the people next to you. It's made to look very upscale, but the wait staff and speed of the service doesn't really reflect that. As someone stated in a previous review "This is Chardon not NYC". If you're going to require reservations and act like an upscale bistro, it needs to reflect in all areas.

Something else that was negative for me was, the attitude of the patrons. It seems like 90% of other people eating there were total snobs. Noses so high they'd drown in a rainstorm. The old woman sitting next to us was acting like a petulant child. Again, you're in Chardon, not NYC.

I will say also, if you're a person who likes "normal" food, then this isn't the place for you. Most every dish on the menu has an odd ingredient in it. Which, I enjoy, but it's not for everyone. I wasn't a huge fan of the smoked salmon in the Philly Roll sushi. It tasted old and was very dark in color. The French onion soup had huge pieces of rosemary in it that I had to pick it out of my teeth. Bleh.

Overall, it was not terrible and not as pricey as I had thought it was going to be. It wouldn't be my first choice for a night out though. The food was good, but the atmosphere was very uncomfortable. I would probably only go back if it was someone's birthday dinner / event I was attending or I was...

Very disappointed....i was just there for lunch and it was amazing..had eggplant ravioli and tacos.....was there tonight for a special dinner....the crab nachos were a fabulous start..then it went downhill from there....i know the bread is their signature..but it truly is hard...two people in party of 4 were given wrong dishes...they were prepared in such a way that they didn't realize they had gotten the wrong dishes right away...when they did...they were whisked away and gotten new dishes..although they never got the dish correct....they asked for mahi mahi (fish)and kept getting ahi ahi tuna ....waitress was generally ambivalent and not very on her A game..as for food....ramen under duck wasn't very good tasted bitter....sweet potatoe mash..was just okay..ribs didn't have enough sauce...french onion soup was too salty and weird spices....pasta and onion dish under ahi ahi had tooooooo much potent onion....i love this place...but bad night...they offered dessert for our trouble....and im sorry...u don't charge people for coffee when you offer them dessert for an epic fail....i didn't need coffee until u offered to comp dessert...that was the icing on a weird night at square bistro...very loud ..wish they could do something about the nose.....could be why waitress never heard...