TBonz Gill & Grill — Restaurant in Charleston

I was downtown for the day and we decided to go get a meal to split. I had eaten here years ago, so I thought I would be getting about the same experience and food portions. We ordered the Fried Jumbo Shrimp Platter for $22 to split between 2 adults and a grilled cheese and fries for my under 2 year old grandchild. Our dish came out and while I was expecting approximately 8 shrimp (enjoyed the one I ate) the order of fries was extremely small, maybe 15-20 fries, and tasted as if they double fried them (harder than expected), the slaw was equivalent to approximately 3 tablespoons and in a disposable sauce cup. I would not say these portions rate "platter" in the name as I was at least expecting double the fries and slaw. Surprised ours came out first but the waitress said the child plate would be out in a minute. No big deal, I gave my grandchild one of our fries and carried on. I kept feeding her some of my portion and about 8-10 mins in I asked about her food. The waitress had assumed it was brought out and went to see what was going on. She came back with plates for another table and stopped to say it would be just a minute. Ok, no problem. 8-10 more minutes passed and I had to ask her to cancel the order as at that point my grandchild had eaten the majority of my half of the adult plate and half of the Cheez-It's we keep in the diaper bag. I only rated 3 stars because of the waitress as I could tell she was working hard and getting frustrated that we didn't get the child plate. $35 later & the grandbaby and I went home to eat some more food. I wish I had taken a picture...

I knew we were probably in for a bad time when the host at the front took our names down and told us the wait would be 15 minutes and it ended being 45 minutes. Mind you, the place wasn’t busy… at all. I could see several tables empty. I ended up asking how much longer it would be and the host asked for my name. I told him and he said “I can’t find you on the list.” I replied “man I’ve been standing outside with my wife for 45 minutes, you told us it would be 15.” He says “well it’s fine we have plenty of tables ready to go we can seat you.”

Our server promptly took our drinks and an appetizer dish, and we didn’t see him again until the appetizer (nachos) came out. Our drinks were near empty when the appetizer came out and I thought the server would refill. Nope. The nachos were ice cold, cheese had crusted over them. Our server took our order. He came back once the food was done, probably 20 minutes later, didn’t check up on us or anything in between. I asked if we could get refills, he said he would get right on it, and to his credit we did get refills…. After our food was almost finished. It then occurred to me that we requested bread and salads and never got them! At this point we were so fed up we just asked for the check, settled up and left. Tbonz was easily the worst dining experience I’ve had in Charleston and I would encourage others to steer clear. The food was okay at best and my sirloin did not command its...

We dined at Tbonz on a couples weekend with 6 other couples and there was something wrong with every meal. None of the steaks had any flavor whether it was the NY, ribeye, sirloin or filet. I got the drunken ribeye and it would have been flavorless had it not been for the hint of marinade. All of the steaks came out cooked to the wrong inside temp from what was ordered. After repeated attempts to get one steak cooked to medium well, the steak went back a 12 oz and returned an entirely different burned piece of random meat half the size. The manager came out to “fix” things and provided lip service and no sincere response. We made sure to tip the server well b/c the kitchen and manager fouled it up, not her. We were trying to figure out where we were going from there and were standing out front and the manager finally showed concern as he thought we were telling other patrons of our experience (which we were not) and that was the most action we saw from him.

With all the exceptional restaurants in Charleston, this was a severe let down. Unless they employ a better chef or a manager that cares to address glaring issues like not being able to cook a steak or run out of potatoes on a Saturday night, I’d try another location. Everywhere else we ate on this trip was outstanding...