82 Queen — Restaurant in Charleston

When we were unable to get a reservations at Husk for Sunday brunch, we settled on 82Queen. Settling is exactly what we did. We were seated upstairs in a nicely appointed dining room. While a couple of us already had drinks from the bar, not all of us did. We were greeted with pleasantries by our server but never offered drinks. She soon came over to ask if we were ready to order. I ordered a bowl of the She Crab Soup and told her that my husband and I were going to share that and also wanted to split a Queens Salad. I told her that I then wanted the Crab Cake Benedict for my entree. She told us that the Queens Salad is an entree salad and that the kitchen wouldn’t spilt it. She said, well it’s an entree. I said are you suggesting we don’t get that. She didn’t respond - she just looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. I said we wanted some greens with our meals since I was getting the crab cake and my husband was planning to order the Duck Hash. She said, “we don’t have a smaller salad.” She made no attempt to offer us any alternative and certainly had no desire to sell us on any additional menu items. She still never asked about drinks. When we asked for a drink menu, she acted like we were putting her out. After completing our order, we saw someone served the daily special quiche with a beautiful salad on the plate. We asked to add that for our table to share. When the quiche was served it was cold - like having recently been refrigerated kind of cold. I asked her if the quiche was supposed to be warm. She said it should be room temperature. I told her our quiche was cold. She removed it from the original salad plate and took it away. She clearly just microwaved the quiche and returned it to the table on the same plate with the crumbs and stuff on the side of the plate where she originally drug the quiche over. Her body language and lack of communication made it appear that she was put out by our displeasure with the quiche temperature.

I also never mentioned to her that both the crab cake and the poached egg were barely warm on the Benedict. The grits and fried green tomato were warm but everything else was barely warm. We had to ask for everything from our server, initiate all conversation, and were never offered drinks or desserts.

The service at a restaurant is part of the experience. Terri, our server, whose name we only learned from the check, diminished our experience. I am empathetic that a person can have a bad day, but we had far greater expectations for a $200+ (could have been a lot more) brunch in a culinary city like Charleston. Additionally, there was a young gentleman server in the dining room next to ours that was laughing with his table, socializing, and being quite attentive. We even saw the table taking pictures with him. He was clearly ensuring his guests had an enjoyable experience. The food is what you come for and the service is what brings you back. There are too many great choices in Charleston to settle for an experience like this! We all commented that we would have been much happier if we had forgone 82Queen and enjoyed the food trucks and street vendors at 2nd...

This was our first “fine dining” experience when we visited Charleston. I was really looking forward to eating here because of all the hype. We had a 8:30 dinner reservation for Wednesday 9/29, and arrived early around 7:50 since we were in the area. We decided to wait by the bar until our table was ready, and noticed that very few of the staff members wore masks. Their policy is that masks are “preferred”, unless you’re vaccinated or meet one of a couple other options. If that makes you uncomfortable, it’s worth knowing before you visit.

We didn’t have to wait an unreasonable amount of time before the hostess came and escorted us to our table. The layout of this restaurant is interesting: it feels like a series of connected rooms, each with an atmosphere distinct from the previous one. We were seated in a small, quiet (seriously, it was so quiet) room with two other couples.

Service: Our waitress, Sarah, came around after a few minutes, and something about her seemed off. We weren’t sure if she was under the influence of something or that was just her personality. We found her to be disorganized at times. When she brought us biscuits, she also gave us hot sauce, which we later found out was supposed to be for another table. We did have a fun time figuring out if we were supposed to dip the biscuits in the hot sauce to add to the experience, though. She was unprofessional when one of the couples in the room left abruptly and she decided to rant to us about how rude they were and how she “didn’t need that negativity” was only there “for positive energy”. On the other hand, she was very kind and comped our dessert after overhearing we were celebrating a birthday.

Food: We ordered the calamari appetizer, a bowl of the she crab soup, the crab cake dinner, and the crispy duck dinner. The calamari was pretty tasty and set us up to expect some good food for the remainder of the night. The she crab soup has supposedly been voted best in the city for the past two decades, and was a large part of the reason I chose this restaurant for dinner. It was sorely disappointing; there were no discernible pieces of crab to be found, and it was extremely floury. We ended up sending it back, unfortunately. The duck entree was underwhelming but edible. The accompanying rice was too salty, perhaps to balance out the duck that tasted like absolutely nothing but the bit of sweet sauce drizzled on top of it. The crab cake entree continued the theme of underwhelming, uninspired food. The shining star of the entire meal was the pecan pie, which was so good we ordered another piece.

Maybe the kitchen was having an off night, but we left very disappointed. 82 Queen absolutely did not live up...

We went in for dinner and were told it would be a 40 min wait but we could get drinks/apps at the bar which we were happy to do. That's where things quickly went downhill. There were 2 bartenders who clearly couldn't keep up. We sat at the bar (2 of us) for 10 min and received no acknowledgement whatsoever. We finally had to wave a hand (I hate doing this) to get their attention and ask for menus and waters. Another 10 min later, we had to get their attention to place a drink order. Shortly after that, we placed an order for several appetizers. 3 of the 4 items came out fairly quickly but the soup didn't have a spoon. Again, we had to wave to get the bartenders attention and request a spoon. Unfortunately, the crab soup was legit cold so we didn't eat it. The shrimp/grits and calamari were ok but not great. After 20 more min the 4th item still hadn't come out and as our experience thus far had been less than stellar, we didn't want it anymore. We asked them to close out and remove it from our bill and also that the soup was cold. They then insisted on bringing us a new soup (we said we didn't need it but they insisted) AND the 4th item we no longer wanted. When they came back they said the 4th item had been sitting there completed and they didn't have anyone to run the food out. As luck would have it, the new soup came out w/out a spoon (again) and was cold (again). The 4th item (fried green tomatoes) looked so unappetizing and had clearly been sitting there for awhile so we asked again that the item simply be removed as we wouldn't eat it. As you can see in the picture, the tomatoes look like hard dried out hockey pucks and the glop of pimento cheese is a turn-off. Overall..the service, or lack thereof was the bigger problem. The food wasn't that good but it also wasn't anything bad enough to warrant this review. The fact that we weren't acknowledged and had to flag someone down every time we needed anything, the soup came out cold (twice) and we had to ask for a spoon (twice)...the fact that nobody noticed one of our items was missing for 20+ min and it was sitting there getting cold. Needless to say nobody ever checked in on us to see how things were. When we got their attention, the bartender was friendly enough but they were both clearly in over their heads and couldn't keep up with the basics. I'd steer clear of this place entirely. Also worth noting all of their "5 star" reviews seem to be "local guides"...wonder if they pay for those reviews somehow to bolster their...