Bean Vegan Cuisine — Restaurant in Charlotte

I don’t typically leave bad reviews, but my latest visit was enough to feel the need to leave one.

This most recent visit was with my girlfriend on my birthday. Everything was fine when being seated and ordering our drinks and food. After ordering our food, we received our appetizer fine. Shortly after, a different waitress came with my girlfriend’s food, sat it down and then kind of gave me a questioning look and asked if I had ordered something too. I told her yes, and she went back to the order/computer, where are original waitress already was. I could hear them talking, and heard “..... was going on, so I completely forgot to put it in....”. Hey, ok, cool — that happens, not a big deal.

Well, while my girlfriend started eating, I waited for about 10 minutes and my original waitress still had not come over to let us know what had happened. The waitress that had brought over our food eventually came by the table, told us what happened and apologized.

Eventually my food had finally came out, albeit missing the side of ranch that I had ordered along with it. I told the waitress, and she ran back to the kitchen area, presumably to get the ranch. I start eating my burger, and hold off for a couple minutes for my side of ranch for the fries. Well, another 5 or so minutes pass, so I said fine, and just started eating my fries as well. I had complete time to finish my meal, pack the rest of my girlfriend’s food in a to-go box, and get the check from the waitress that had originally dropped off our food.

As I was filling in the check, the original waitress comes over with a side of ranch in a plastic cup, and kind of looks around befuddled as to what I need the ranch for since. I said that yeah, it took too long, I’m done eating and don’t need the ranch anymore. She kind of got snippy and said “well, we already put it in the cup so let me get you a lid to take it home because it’s already on your check”. So she ran off to get the lid I guess, and when she came back I told her that the ranch had taken 10 minutes to get, after i had finally received my food, which was after I had watched my girlfriend eat, because she forgot to put the order in and not even have the courtesy to tell us, and you still expect me to pay for the ranch?

She gave some mumblings about how the kitchen was busy and blah blah blah, and didn’t take it off the check and gave us a “you still have to pay for it” kind of attitude. Ok, so let me get this straight — you forgot to put in my order, didn’t tell us that you forgot to put in my order, the food finally comes WITHOUT the ranch that I had ordered, and you send a simple side of ranch to the BEGINNING of the kitchen line instead of telling the kitchen that you need it rushed for an already late order? Either way, I gave the first $0 tip in my life and left the ranch.

This entire situation would have been fine and we would have left happy if just two things had happened...

Told us what had happened with my order. Since I overheard her talking, I knew what had happened, but she didn’t know that. Have the courtesy to come to the table, explain and apologize. If you had forgotten the ranch for my already late order, go back have the kitchen rush it. Seriously, this isn’t that hard of a concept and it’s how things always seem to be done at every other restaurant I’ve ever been to. But ok, you didn’t do that. Cool. Even not having the ranch for my meal wasn’t that big of a deal. But after it arrived 10-15 minutes later, you should have apologized and been proactive and take it off the check.

So look, the food is good when you’re in the mood for greasy vegan soul food. I’ve had some issues with the service, with this one being the worst. I have seen numerous mentions of many others having issues with the service as well. After this one though, I definitely won’t be returning and instead will go to the many other killer vegan options in CLT.

(Thank you to the waitress that was actually helpful during...

So I was super excited to bring my Omni friend to his first vegan restaurant. He was so excited to try some vegan food from a restaurant, and I had been raving to him about Bean. We literally were sitting in the parking lot for twenty minutes waiting for them to open. I have been there before and had the Reuben and the breakfast bowl. This time, I opted for the buffalo cauliflower bites for my entree and some queso dip before. The queso dip was okay. Nothing special. It was not a cheesy dip but more like a black bean dip from a jar. My cauliflower bites come out, and I take a small bite from one of them and then put it right back down. It was DRENCHED in oil. It was so oily it was inedible. The pictures I have posted really don’t do it justice. I could have poured all of the oil into a glass to drink. It was not the buffalo sauce (which the owner tried to defend later on the phone from his other location), it was STRAIGHT UP OIL. So I begin looking over the menu to see what else I can get because I could not eat these. I tell the waitress about it and show her and the first words out of her mouth were, “We don’t do exchanges or refunds.” I told her again that I could not eat them. They were drenched in oil to the point of being inedible. She said, “well they look fine to me. I would eat them. I eat cauliflower bites all the time and they look fine.” At this point, I am just frustrated with this server’s response because this is no way to treat a guest. I asked for a manager. She said with a nice smug grin, “I am the manager.” It was honestly hilarious. She was so proud to announce that. She’s the manager... but yet she’s also serving the tables? Interesting. And also, how in the world did any mentally sound owner decide SHE should be the manager? She was the rudest person I’ve ever met. Guests always come first. This is food and bev 101. You take care of your guests, no matter what the issue may be. You don’t say, “they look fine to me. I would eat them.” The least they could have done was remake them or give me an exchange of the same value. That’s just poor business practice... They must be struggling financially. Anyways, she dropped the bill off and didn’t take the cauliflower bites off and never offered any compensation. I sat there for like 20 minutes trying to figure out if I should pay or walk out. I ended up paying. So I found out the owner is currently at the other location in Asheville. I gave him a call to let him know, and he immediately went defensive. He said he would not do anything because I did not like his food. I explained over and over again that it’s not that I didn’t like his food, it’s that it was inedible. He said there’s nothing wrong with his food and the cauliflower bites are saucy. I told him it was definitely not the sauce, it was oil. This went on for about ten minutes and he just said he trusted his manager and he’s not going to do anything. I said well thank you for your time but this is extremely disappointing, AND THE OWNER HUNG UP ON ME. How unprofessional. I will never return to Bean because of this awful experience. I will also continue to spread the word on the experience and the unprofessional and rude response from the management and owner.

Seriously Charlie, a no exchanges or refunds policy is ABSURD for food that is improperly cooked. I know you kept trying to say your food is properly cooked (even though you weren’t there) but if a guest is so upset by an experience from your management that they feel the need to call you, you do something about it. I would be happy to send you some books on management 101 to your Asheville location.

TL;DR: buffalo cauliflower bites were drenched in oil and inedible. Very rude management said too bad no exchanges or refunds. I called owner because of the awful experience with his management and he defended them and said he won’t do anything... and THEN HUNG UP THE PHONE ON ME. EXPECT TO GET RUDE MANAGEMENT AND SUBPAR FOOD IF...

Wow! What a hidden little gem. This is definitely my favorite vegan place that’s not a franchise that I’ve been to thus far. My husband and I are both quite well traveled and have had vegan food from around the world. While they definitely aren’t perfect, they are onto something here. Never have I been so impressed with vegan comfort food. Our little family of four is vegan and eats mostly raw, but every now and then we want to change things up and this is definitely the place to make that happen. The atmosphere and customer service was phenomenal. For not being a chain restaurant they had a huge selection of menu items and it was just adventurous enough without being too risky on their end. We don’t live nearby unfortunately, but the next time we’re in North Carolina we plan to go there and cannot wait to bring the kids with us in the future. We did grab some food to take home to the kids and some items from their retail selection. There’s definitely an older, homey vibe however don’t let that fool you. It was impeccably clean. The menus weren’t sticky, tables didn’t smell like dirty rags or any of those typical issues with restaurants of this style. It felt like a relaxing trip to your grandparents’ house where you knew you could finally just relax and you were taken care of and didn’t have to question anything. We’ve been to “vegan” restaurants before that used honey and beeswax and it made us question our whole experience and we felt uneasy eating there, but this was definitely not like that at all. Our only cons were that the sides of onion rings and Mac and cheese arrived colder than the other entrees that they came with and that the diablo burger wasn’t spicy. My husband asked what the Diablo burger was and we were told it was just their regular burger but with a spicy sauce, however he says it wasn’t spicy. No big deal, no price difference, etc but he would have appreciated it being spicy. He did try to add the hot sauce that was available on the table and that didn’t really do much to help either. He thinks if you don’t enjoy spicy foods you’d enjoy it without any thought to this being an issue. I appreciate that the sides were probably made too soon and then sent out when the entrees were ready and weren’t placed under a heat lamp in the mean time, so if not using a heat lamp I would just suggest working on the timing of prepping sides/meals. We didn’t ask for the food to be reheated, however their customer service was so great that I think had we asked they would have heated it up for us honestly. We were just full anyways so decided we’d bring them home with our desserts and heat them up in our air fryer later. Over all, this is a great little hole in the wall place. We just stumbled across it by chance while going to Charlotte quickly and so...