Gilde Brewery — Restaurant in Charlotte

Another great brewery in Charlotte. First location of Gilde in the USA and their first restaurant. Myself and my two best friends had a wonderful time. We started off with flights. The beers chosen for the flights were More Than a Pils, Gilde Pilsener, Worth the Wait, the Miner, Red Rooster, Dark Hen, Broyhan's Bock and Gilde Urbock. We are older gentleman and tend to avoid the IPAs. The beers we had are all excellent. My taste preferences (in order) were Urbock, Bock, Miner, Red Rooster, Dark Hen, Worth the Wait, Gilde Pilsener the More Than a Pils. Every beer was great tasting. Next time I will go outside my comfort zone and taste the IPA and the shandy. And get a taste of their pale wheat. We had the white sausage and breadzel as appetizers. For dinner we each chose the Schnitzel. Delicious. Good sized portion of veal. The breading was very tasty and the chef did a great job of getting the doneness and the temperature of the veal perfect. Served with German style potato salad. Interesting that the potato salad was served at room temperature and not a trace of pork. It seems that the German restaurants in the area (even down to Myrtle Beach and out West to the Asheville/Black Mountain/Weaverville area) all serve the potato salad at room temperature. I remember German potato salad being served warm when I was younger. But that was when I lived in Pennsylvania. Perhaps serving at room temperature is a 'Southern' thing. I also ordered the cucumber salad. Everything was very tasty. And let me not forget to give a big shoutout to the wait staff. Wonderful, marvelous job. Noel was our waitress and she was wonderful. The brewery is large and filled up quickly. And it was evident that everyone else at Gilde was having a good time. And that's what great beer and food can do. Leads to wonderful conversations with friends and memorable experiences. Hats off to the brewers, the kitchen staff, the wait staff, the management and everyone involved for getting it right at the start. Gilde should be in the Charlotte area for a very long time. And you reading this review should make plans to get thee...

I've got nearly 17 years of the service industry under my belt and this place is lacking the basics big time:

1: The place wasn't busy at all. Which I normally love this about restaurants because the service is usually much better when the staff isn't stretched thin. However, our waiter took our drink orders and disappeared for nearly ten minutes only to come back and tell us they didn't serve sweet tea. I told him I was fine with water. It took another ten minutes before he returned with a pitcher of water. I placed the water pitcher at the end of the table with my empty glass and multiple employees walked by ignoring it.

2: The lack of team work is astonishing. No one seemed to look out for one another. The server that dropped off our food didn't even acknowledge our empty glasses. It was another 10 minutes before our actual server returned.(where did he keep disappearing to?)

3: Zero traditional music playing there. You know what played instead? Mariah Carey Christmas music...in September.

4: Staff seemed more focused on hanging out together instead of floating around the restaurant checking on tables and showing any team work.

5: Reading the other negative reviews seemed to check out that the big issue here is the service. Our server needs training and needs to learn the menu, I know alot of these skills comes with time as you develop but management needs to really push the idea of team work and anticipating the needs of the guests. No guests should have to ask multiple times for water refills before they finally come. Servers need to anticipate these needs and deliver the basics before the guests even realize they need them. It's a bad look to see the staff all huddled up hanging out instead of covering the floor.

Food was good, service really killed...

Met friend there Wednesday evening, little free parking on street, paid lots next to this brewery charged me $7.20 for 1.5 hours, 2 hours was over $9, just crazy given any other of the breweries in the immediate area are free. After writing this review I very quickly heard back from Gilde's business manager on Yelp who mentioned these lots are not part of the breweries property and are other businesses even though the parking fee states "Brew Parking" (Gilde should insist they change the name of the lots since it implies the brewery is charging customers which they are not. She did mention that there is free parking on the visitor's level of the parking garage across the street or at the nearby Scaleybark rail station (no signage I saw so I'll try that if I go back in the future, much appreciated Gilde's quick reply). Nice place (see pictures), ordered a beer flight since I had never tried their beer. Then after getting back to my table I noticed my receipt had charged me with four other beers I didn't order on it. None matched what I was supposed to get in my flight. I then wasted 10 minutes waiting behind other customers just trying to figure out if I even got the right beers in the flight (bartender said they just ring in any beer name since they all cost the same. Why would you do that, ring up a flight entry, something generic but don't confuse your customers with random beers on the receipt). Gilde also mentioned this was not normal and they are still training new hires, I may try to go back and see if this is still happening soon. Initially not impressed but I do know they are new and still trying to figure things out and I'll go back soon and try to see where this free parking is and whether it is viable when...