Bricks & Barrels — Restaurant in Charleston

First time dining here, and I couldn't imagine us ever coming back. Really disappointed. The reviews were so good, we thought this was going to be great. We were in visiting on a work trip and we were looking for some great food.

First off, the venue space is nice. I really liked the atmosphere and vibe. Unfortunately, things kind of didn't start well and they just went downhill from there.

We were looking at the higher dollar menu items like the seabass and scallops. They had a scallops special that caught our attention but the chef wouldn't budge on the menu sides. We were looking for something lower carb. What I wanted was the scallop dinner with the special miso sauce, but instead of the sweet potato hash, I wanted veggies. But the server said the chef said no. Based on that, we both ended up ordering a hamburger. It wasn't what we wanted but we felt it was the safest option based on the quality of the appetizer.

You see, we had ordered some calamari and it was so bad we had to send it back. It was nothing but hard crunchy batter. There was very little calamari actually in the pieces. You couldn't even pierce it with your fork. It was horrible. Based on the quality and flavor of the calamari, we decided to not take the risk on sea bass or scallops.

The burgers came out and they were ok. Nothing special. I've read through some of the other reviews about the complaints of how salty the food is, and I can confirm the food we had was way over salted.

Now for the service. This was a really awkward and uncomfortable night. The server was trying but he honestly didn't fit the price point of the menu. Each interaction was more awkward than the next. The things he would say and the way he communicated, made us so confused and uncomfortable. He was a nice guy, he just probably isn't a good fit as a server.

We've had good meals in Charleston before, tonight wasn't one of them. The martinis we had were good, but we walked out of there only spending $70, while we had a budget of $125 each to spend. This restaurant lost out on $180 worth of business all because they didn't want to budge on the scallops dish. Do the math, this wasn't a smart...

Dined in on 3/13/2021 for celebrating my partner’s birthday. I was sure to do all the right things such as: research a great place - make a reservation - show up a few minutes early - dress nicely - save my appetite!

When we entered the establishment we were blown away by what we saw (in a good way.) The hostess greeted us and was very attentive. We were seated at our table and awaited our server. Some time (15-20 minutes) passed by. We were then served water in styrofoam cups. The server said the glasses were not clean. (Our reservation was at 6:30pm.) I wasn’t sure how they were “out” but we didn’t think too much about this. Until of course, every table around us (freshly seated) received actual glasses. I was confused as to why the server kept telling us they were “still out of glasses” each time he filled our styrofoam cups with a flask of water, when that was quite obviously a lie. Thank God I spoke up to put in the wine order and appetizer because after we got our wine and appetizer the server would walk by and just look at us or fill our styrofoam cups with water. We weren’t sure when he would eventually ask us for our food order. I’m not kidding, from sit down time to finally stopping the server in mid-gait to take our dinner order, it was over an hour. I’d planned to order dessert, another bottle of wine and really enjoy the time at the establishment, but the server was nowhere near up to par. Had it seemed like an off day I would have let it go, but considering he was fully capable of serving the rest of the tables in his section with no visible issues I feel there must have been something else going on. What that is, I don’t know. I was actually in town from St. Louis and have been left with a strange impression of dining in Charleston, WV. The server can thank the amazing quality from your kitchen and fantastic hostess for the tip that was received. As a former server, it was hard to stomach the lack of skill, attentiveness and professionalism used at the table. I am actually a huge tipper when service is great considering my past experience in working for tips in the restaurant industry. I hope this was a...

Went with a party of 7 on a Friday night, called ahead for reservations. The place was fairly busy but not at capacity, with 6-8 bar seats available for a good portion of our dinner.

DRINK VARIETY: The beer selection is better than most places but still doesn't come close to Pies and Pints, however they do have a full bar and my wife enjoyed a few of the mixed drinks. I feel the serving staff would benefit from some more training in craft beer (Cicerone materials or something similar).

SERVICE: This place has a lot of potential, however everything was way too slow (There were several times where I remember looking around the restaurant and almost no one was eating, yet many were obviously still waiting on appetizers or entrees). The bar was also very slow initially to get drinks out and didn't seem to be prioritizing drink orders well. The server wasn't bad, however there were a lot of little things going on the background (several glasses dropped and broken while we were there, at least one time was due to a busser trying to overload himself for seemingly no reason). The manager was supposedly going to stop by and visit due to how long everything was taking but that never happened.

PRICE: 130$ for 2 beers, 2 mixed drinks, 2 entree's and tip. I had Chilean Sea Bass (Excellent) and my wife had Scallops. Overall a bit on the pricey side (I was upcharged 6$ to go from Mixed Veggies to Brussel Sprouts despite being the same price on the menu?) Mixed drinks were 10$ that I feel would have probably been 8 elsewhere, just a lot of small things that add up.

QUALITY: Extremely inconsistent, our party was generally unhappy with variations in food temperature. The server brought out some replacement sides (WAAAY too much) but given how long everything took, the kitchen staff did not do a good job making sure everything was hot.

Overall I loved my entree at least, it was my first time having that particular type of fish though and I'm sure I would love it anywhere that adequately prepares it. I would most likely only come back here during off-peak hours...