Don's Restaurant — Restaurant in Charlotte

I hate to have to write this review because I use to RAVE/POST/PROMOTE about this restaurant all the time. It got to the point that I would go almost every other weekend for dinner with friends, brunches with family and we’ve even celebrated birthdays and engagements here.  But the fact that this is not the first time I’ve been disappointed by them leads me to this.

I went with my friends to 7th on 4/6/2019, arriving shortly after 1am. We sat down fairly quickly, was greeted by the waiter and ordered our drinks, which took a very long time to arrive. One of my friends ended up having to return her drink as her soda was flat. How? I’m not sure as we ordered the same drink. It took them over 10 minutes to bring her a replacement but understanding it was a busy night due to the festivities that occurred in CLT AND the fact that they were short staff, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and proceeded to order. After placing our orders we waiting for approximately 45 minutes to an hour for the waiter to come back and say that they ran out of something and could not complete my friends order. Why wasn’t this confirmed 45 minutes ago? She is handed a menu to order another item and the waiter never came back, that is until we flagged him down. She placed her order and we wait.

7th has an open view to the kitchen and guests are able to view when orders are up for the wait staff to deliver to customers. Our table faced that view and noticed that one order was up. It sat there for about 25 minutes before it was picked up by OUR waiter. We watched it for 25 minutes! Hoping that he wouldn’t, he picked up the plate and proceeded to our table to drop off the food. I kindly asked him not to, as 1. It has been sitting up there for almost a half hour and 2. Nobody else’s food was ready. I advised him we wouldn’t be able to take that order.

It is now almost 2:45am and we still do not have any food. The waiter comes to our table and says that the manager/owner is going to come talk to us. I’m assuming it’s about the timing of our food arrival. When we finally got to the speak with the manager, there was no apology, no ETA on when we would get our food, and he offered a discount. A DISCOUNT!?!? Mind you, still no food. At this point, that further disappointed us and our table just got up and left after advising another waitress to just cancel our order, as our waiter was nowhere to be found. There was absolutely no consideration, on the restaurants’ end, of our time. We’ve been there since 1pm, with bad service, no re-fills, no ETA on food arrival; and no apology, even from management, for the experience, and it’s now 3am and we have to leave, still with no food, disappointed!

The one star is truly for the food and...

Let's start with the drinks. It took a while for our waitress to even come to the table, and when she did, we ordered apps, entrees, and drinks, because we didn't know when she'd come back. Only ONE person received an app, and this was before we got drinks. So I asked her where the drinks were, and she said they should be coming soon. She brought them one at a time, about 5/6 minutes apart. Like... Why not just bring them all over? Then she brought me wine instead of a sangria, and it didn't even have fruit in it. I went to the bartender directly, and she said she TOLD the waitress she didn't have the ingredients for sangria, but the waitress didn't tell us, and she took it upon herself to just bring wine. So I asked the bartender for another drink instead, and left the wine at the bar. Then the entrees start coming out, one at a time, probably 7 minutes apart, AND THEY WERE COLD. And the apps were ordered came AFTER the entrees. So we ask the waitress if she could remake the plate since everything was cold. She pretty much said she had to the see if the chef would want to remake it. What? It doesn't matter what THEY want to do, the food is cold. Why wouldn't you want to remake it? The manager comes over, and gets it remade, and I told him 2 of us still hadn't received drinks, and the SECOND DRINK I ASKED THE BARTENDER FOR hadn't come either. He FINALLY brings the drinks over. Mind you, this whole time our waitress is VERY slow, isn't alleviating the bad service, and is continuing to bring out cold food... I ordered the breakfast sampler, it was mediocre, cold, and the 2 strips of bacon I received were VERY small. I also ordered collard greens that tasted TERRIBLE. No seasoning at all, I took one bite and put it down. Out of all of us, only one person at our table received hot THE FIRST time they ordered. It was the wings, which were actually pretty good. The waitress brings the checks when we're ready to go, and there's an 18% service charge already added. This explained the terrible service: they get tipped no matter how awful the service is. Our friend recommended this spot, since most of us are from out of town. I love supporting black businesses, but I will not be returning to this one. Very cute atmosphere, and I like the music. But everyone is slow, and the food isn't good enough to deal with...

Edit I wrote a book: It started in the parking lot. I parked my car in the spots reserved for 7th District, no one was around when I parked. I hear someone honking, I thought surely they’re not honking at me. So a jeep pulls up and in an annoyed way honked at me again. I rolled my window down and asked if she was honking at me and she says “I work here and I need that parking spot.” The spot was NOT reserved for employees. I didn’t want any trouble, I was there for good food with my friends so I left the parking space and went to PAID parking.

I went in to put my name on the list because the place was packed. I get in and the guy that said he was the manager was standing at the hostess stand. When he finally acknowledged me I said I would like to put my name on the list. He said as a matter of factly that there was no list. I asked how do I eat here? He said well it will be an hour and it’s first come first serve. I called my friends and told them the madness that had just occurred and we decided to tough it out.

So right at an hour we had a table and our waitress didn’t come to take our order for THIRTY minutes 30! When she finally got to the table she acted annoyed, no apology, just rushing to take our order.

The food came out and it was DELICIOUS, she brought our drinks to the table and dropped them on the table like the glass was too heavy for her. I was APPALLED!! She was the WORST waitress I have ever experienced in ANY establishment. She was so bad that the table behind us complained and she wasn’t even their waitress. She was just spreading her nastiness all around the place.

The food definitely saves this place because the service leaves much to be desired!

Below is a Wednesday night with a different set of friends and better not good but better service:

The food is dance in your seat, laughing for no reason good! The collard green dip, the wings, the shrimp and grits and the WAFFLE FRIES Chick-fil-A could Neva! I was just there last night, I’ve been many times and never disappointed. Get the sweet tea but don’t...