Soul Gastrolounge — Restaurant in Charlotte

I invited a group of 14 people for my wife's bday dinner to Soul Gastrolounge after reading all the good reviews, and came away with with a sub-par experience because of which all of us in the group do not plan to dine at this place at least till our memories are erased. The restaurant has outside balcony seating along with inside seating such as booths, a shared seating area surrounded by couches, and a shared seating area with mixed seats. Except for the booths inside, all other seating areas (inside and outside) are open and a group of 14 such as ours can sit there and enjoy conversation as they dine. However, they decided to seat us in 3 separate booths inside where there was no possibility of interactions between all of us in the group. Guess what? The other open seating areas (inside and outside) had plenty of space to accommodate our entire group, and we pointed that out to the host and our waitress. They both said that they were holding those open areas inside for walk ins (defies logic when we were already there as a group and space was available). As for the outside tables on the balcony, they said that the different tables are serviced by different waiters and hence we cannot be seated there - this again defies logic that they are willing to not seat a group of people together when space is available just because more than 1 waiter will have to be bothered. More importantly, the stern tone of "sorry, NO negotiations" was rather insulting.

Midway through our dinner, the entire inside area surrounded by couches became empty and we went to the host and waitress to request a move since we all were definitely not enjoying our experience being thus separated. The answer was a firm NO - they cannot be bothered and they would rather keep those empty on the off chance that someone (more worthy than us perhaps?), would walk in. Note that this place does not hold seats on reservations.

As others have mentioned, the food was good, but the drinks were horribly watered down. The only thing going for their overpriced drinks was their interesting names. Whoever was making those cocktails loves to play with a lot of water, and didn't seem like a cocktail expert (read - I can mix stuff up at home and they come out better in taste than the ones we paid dearly for at Soul Gastrolounge). At the end of this bad experience, they added a 20% tip automatically and I paid around $700 for the privilege of such a horrible experience. Oh, did I tell you that as soon as we walked in they told us that we would need to get out of there within 1 hour 45 mins? They reminded us of that a couple of more times during dinner. I have been living in Charlotte for the past 22 years and we dine out at least once every week, and this was our...

We used to love this place when they were at their old location, 3 years ago. We went back today for my birthday and were unfortunately disappointed. We made reservations - online it does not give you the option to reserve a booth, which is what we would have preferred. So when we arrived and she tried to sit us at a tiny 2 person table where I'd be basically touching the person next to me - we asked to sit at one of their booths and were told "those are all reserved". Why? No one came and sat at them for over an hour and there was no option to reserve the booths online. We were told that it was about a 30 minute wait for sushi, so we went ahead and put in our order right then and there. It took 50 minutes to be brought out to the table. Then not even 5 minutes later, people that arrived well after us, recieved their rolls. I'm not sure if they forgot ours or something?? The sushi roll was mediocre. We also ordered the Korean wings and the chicken skin nachos. The wings were tiny and the meat on the legs (you can't order all flats) was tough. The nachos barely had any cheese on them and the cheese was cold when it got to us (we immediately ate them when they arrived at the table). The cocktails were MAYBE a 2/5 stars. They were out of 3 different drinks we wanted to order and then the drinks we did get, weren't great. I even sent one of them back and they did take it off of our check for me. Also, no garnishes on ANY of the drinks? If I'm paying $18/cocktail, at least make it look nice!! By the time we got our sushi roll, we had been there for an hour and a half and were just ready to leave. It took our server 15 minutes to bring us our check after we asked - we almost walked to the front to ask to pay so we could leave. The server did have some things taken off our check for us, which was nice - but I would have preferred better service, better food, and better drinks on my birthday. We unfortunately will...

Nice place, friendly staff, the food.....is where I had a problem. Me and my husband have seen and heard about this place and were excited to go. He ordered pork with watermelon and that was good...$9. Then he ordered bone marrow for $10. It was 2 large bones that came with pita bread, but it wasn't dressed up they didn't add a sauce or garnish. It was like paying $10 for 2 spoonful of apple sauce (portion size of what was edible). Don't charge $10 just because the bones are large....we can't eat a bone lol....AND it wasn't prepared in an amazing way to justify $10. Lastly...I ordered lamb lollipops that I asked to be cooked medium for $20. I'm thinking since the price is so high is should be a larger portion. (Jaw dropped when it arrived) there were only 3!!!!! TINY ITY BITY lamb lollipops. I have spent $20-25 at different restaurants for lamb and received a much generous portion for the value as well as sides. These didn't specify sides so I expected a lot more meat. I should have taken pictures...the size was smaller than a sausage patty ;-(....more like the diameter of a chips ahoy cookie. Moral of the story, don't always believe the hype and look for pics before you generously spend your money. We spent $45 on food for 6 bites of food and had to go to McDonald's after we left!!!!!!!!!!!!! This hurts and I will never ever ever ever ever return. The music was not very pleasing, the DJ never showed up and the music was like they play at a rave party. No thanks and reevaluate the value of the food by adding more food or lowering the prices. I know Tappas and what we ordered were not Tappas portions / prices (lamb and bone marrow.....pork and watermelon was more...