STIR — Restaurant in Chattanooga

Is this becoming a sneaky chain? Yes. But it is still quite good. They have a sister restaurant here in a Chattanooga and a couple more places in Charlotte, and often that would diminish service and food quality, but, in this case, it was just what we needed for a late night meal. It could just be that we were coming in so late for dinner, reservations at 9:30, that the crowds had died down, but our server was in great spirits and really took his time with us.

Let’s talk about the food. I ordered a dozen oysters, and I should have ordered a dozen more. Why? Two reasons. First, the trend of serving raw oysters with Mignonette is one I started recognizing a couple of decades ago, when I was living in San Francisco, and often when they serve it this way, they don’t also offer the cocktail sauce and the crackers and the horseradish, which I grew up with in the low country. In this case, the oysters came with all of the above. Other restaurants make you feel quite pedestrian when you ask for cocktail sauce and horseradish. I love not having to ask.

Also, the oysters were plump and flavorful, briny and good, but not to briny, and very clean. I love a really, really clean oyster. I don’t want any dirt or a single speck of sand, and there was no dirt.

We also ordered the the cheeseburger egg rolls. Just for giggles. I’ve had Reuben eggrolls in the past, and it’s really interesting to combine that amount of meat in an eggroll, and these were as expected, Super meaty and cheesy and fried. They were good, but a bit filling, and I probably would not order them again. But they are, as they sound, cheeseburger eggrolls. Lots of meat and cheese, and the fried element making it a bit greasy, of course. Just a huge calorie dish, but delicious.

For my main course, I had the shrimp Louie salad. Gosh, I have not seen a shrimp Louie salad on a menu since the 70s. How fun and retro and country club chic! Like most Louie salads, the shrimp should really be the star here, and it was. It would’ve been nice if they had their own take on thousand island, and did something a bit different to it. Perhaps added a little tang or just an uptick of spice to it. I added a glass of Prosecco and just settled into old-fashioned country club vibes.

My partner had the sesame steak bowl, and he said it was just a bit too sour. I agreed after tasting it. I understand working with soy and sesame, sometimes it can veer a little salty or the sesame can completely overwhelm the dish. Perhaps to compensate, they added too much tang, as it was a little sour. But the steak was cooked well, and the other other elements supported it.

We finished the night by bringing home a slice of flourless chocolate cake. I make this at home, and it taste about the same, it’s so hard to mess up, as it’s just basically a chocolate bomb, but I love the addition of the bourbon citrus caramel.

This was a perfect stop after our drive from North Carolina, and we really enjoyed our late night meal and our cheerful...

This place is absolutely PHENOMENAL!!

Not only is the food full of love and the atmosphere beautiful and welcoming but the people who went out of their way to personalize me and my husband's experience have permanently made this one of the best trips we've ever taken!!

SARAH, our first server the day we came in was herself without the customer service fluff and I could tell from the start. Giving us excellent recommendations and even going as far as wanting to learn about us felt genuine the entire time. I had spoken to her about this trip having been a complete surprise for my husband (he didn't even know we were going to Tennessee) and she made sure to be extra attentive and got everything done perfectly. She introduced me to AMOS who became our server later that day and kept the same amount of genuine energy, he was more of a goofball which we adored and shared his unnecessarily adorable baby videos with us 😂😂

The next day I had another surprise planned for my love that the gentleman in the kitchen nicknamed BAHAMAS played along into knowing he didn't need to. I came up to him whispering that I need to know which exit to take that my husband wouldn't see me (I'm way too noticeable because I have silver, blue and black hair) and he was so stinking cute with the matching my energy and whispering on where I need to go. I was sneaking out to run back to the hotel room because I had booked the train cart room transfer that I didnt want my husband to know about until we walked back in. 😌 Happy to say it worked out like a charm and I will also be shouting out the hotel staff who helped me with my room switching heist.

Lastly, the next day we came back to eat at Stir because of whatever drug is in that food there, way too yummy 🤣 when we came back we worked with a pretty lady named ANNA who was an absolute doll, keeping the same reputation of genuine business and fun conversations while my husband and I played table top games and competitive jar mimosa challenges! At the end I had Bahamas grab TAYLOR, their manager because he needed to understand he has more than a good staff here. He has a family mindset team who he should be incredibly proud to have on board.

Thank you so much for helping me make our anniversary weekend an astounding one Stir. When we come back we will be having our round 3 at this...

what a bad experience. i want to preface this by saying i love stir. the food and service are normally top tier. tonight was not the case. we were told it would be a 5-10 minute wait, but it took 25. once we were finally seated it took 10-15 minutes for us to even see a server and the guy who took our order wasn’t even on our server. by the time we see our actual server, amos, it’s been 30 minutes. he promises us he’s going to give us great service. he brings us one round of drinks and that’s it. food runners bring us everything else, and eventually we have to ask a bus boy to bring us our second round of our drinks. i’m so serious when i say our server only brought us the first round of drinks, and some napkins. no silverware, no little plates for our appetizers. and what, i’m supposed to tip him instead of the food runners and bus boy?? we finally ask for a manager and taylor comes out. he’s very apologetic and understanding, takes our food off for us. amos comes out and apologizes for how long the drinks took - that wasn’t the issue. his service was. we tell the manager taylor we’re ready to check out, and he goes inside. it takes 15 MINUTES for amos to finally come back out with our checks. me and my entire party are servers. we understand if someone is in the weeds, or if a server is having an off day. but his apologies felt so damn forced. like he didn’t mean them. kept apologizing for if we “thought” the service was subpar. my guy, it’s not our thought, it’s fact. we saw him TWICE!! three times if you include him bringing our check finally. he’s basically confronting us at this point and i tell him we didn’t see him the first 30 minutes we were seated. we arrived at 8; didn’t leave until 10 something. he’s giving us halfassed apologies like we’re the problem, and as we’re leaving he says have a good night. i say you too, and everyone in my party including myself heard him say “i wasn’t talking to you.” i confront him and he claims he never said that, but he 100000% did. stir, manager taylor, i love you. but amos is arrogant and needs to at least be written up, holy hell. will not be back for dinner service, ever, if that means that dude has to serve me. on top of it all, dude tries to charge my friend a check that didn’t even belong to her....