Choplin's Restaurant — Restaurant in Cornelius

Choplin's is where you end up on Valentine's Day when you wait too long to book reservations at a desirable restaurant. Upon arrival my wife and I had to wait about 10 minutes for a table even though we had reservations and the place looked half empty. While waiting there were Valentine's candies, a club store bought cheese plate and crackers on a coffee table in the waiting area. In addition, was a hearty speaker kicking out tunes from a Kenny Loggins wanna-be jamming out on his electronic keyboard setting the mood with "Lady in Red."

Finally being sat we noticed a black board filled with a list of entrees surrounded by hand drawn hearts. On it were things like 24 oz porterhouse, roast duck, etc. (good options I'd like to eat). A waitress noticed me reading the menu and quickly pointed out to me that I could not order from that menu since it was for a party held earlier in the night and that I had to order from the $40 select-a-appetizer-entree-desert menu. Great! After deciphering the over-the-top script V-Day font choice for the menu in low light I opted for the lobster bisque soup, filet with chocolate port sauce and salted caramel peanut butter pie while my wife chose pot stickers (???), pork tenderloin and red velvet pie. We both ordered a glass of wine where my Malbec was likely the last pour from a tired bottle and my wife's was actually good. After tasting my soup I renamed it to Burnt Nutmeg Imitation Crab Soup. My filet came out lumped on mashed potatoes and covered in the brown sauce which tasted like grade school lunch gravy. The steak itself was sad to the point where I would say I've had better sirloin or roast beef than this offering. I quickly tried to steal a bite from my wife's tenderloin after realizing I failed the selection test. The pork tenderloin was over cooked and spongey to chew meanwhile the BBQ sauce tasted like it was store bought... Kraft maybe? Thirty minutes after we were done with our forgettable entrees our server explained to us they were out of cheesecake. This was completely fine with us since neither my wife or I ordered the cheesecake. When I explained what we ordered to our server she incredulously poured through her notes to see if she was in fact wrong. When the deserts finally arrived they looked like and tasted like they were made from store bought aluminum tin Jello no bake cake mix.

We spent $124 including tip for store bought lunch lady land flavor, bizarre ambience and saccharine service. If I for some unforeseen reason end up on death row, found out my last rights meal was to be catered from Choplin's... I'd encourage the executioner to hurry up and flip the switch and put my out of my misery....

My fiancé and I read a lot about this restaurant and we were excited to hear how this is a local chef in what was to be a more upscale dining experience. We were surprised to see that this restaurant was in a strip mall. So, it was not really what we expected from the start and it only kept disappointing from there. The highlights of the meal as a whole was the drinks, the salmon, and the French onion soup. We started with the French Onion Soup and the Crab and Artichoke dip. The onion soup was great, but the Crab Artichoke dip was bland with no taste of crab at all. It could have just been an artichoke dip only and we would have never known. Those tables around us got bread and butter served to their tables, but our server neglected to bring these to our table. It would have been nice to have with the French Onion Soup. We waited about 20-minutes to get our dinner served, but it was incomplete to start. My fiancé got the Salmon which she said tasted really good. I ordered the steak with spinach and green beans. I asked for a balsamic vinegar for the spinach and my green beans were delayed. The steak was tender but it could have been seasoned more. We both noticed that the food presentation was absolutely missing. It was just plain. My green beans came very late in the meal along with my balsamic although they gave to me a balsamic glaze when I asked for balsamic vinegar. I tried it with the cooked spinach and it was horrible. So, it went untouched. Our server was missing for most of the meal and we waited quite some time for her to return. I wanted to order another drink, but that never happened. We waited and waited to pay while those table around us left and were reseated. I asked the hostess if I get my server and about 5-7 minutes later the hostess returned and said that she could not get the attention of my server. She offered to us a free desert which was nice but we do not eat desserts so we declined. She eventually returned with our check after we asked for it and she did remove our drinks from our bill which is why this was a 3-star review and not a 2-star review. My server finally showed up after we had the hostess work with getting to us our check and taking our payment. She too offered a free dessert but we declined again. Our reservation was before 6pm and the restaurant was not busy when we arrived however she said that her really large table preoccupied her time. She should have asked for help from her peers when she was knowing that she was predisposed by other tables. I was hoping for more, but it was more of a total disappointment than anything else. I would most likely not return as it was really not worth the...

We visited Choplin's for the first time for a birthday dinner. We booked a reservation at 2:30pm to arrive for dinner at 7:30pm. I got a text confirming we were booked for a patio table with the option to wait 30+ minutes for an indoor table. We arrived at 7:30, & they were so busy that we weren't able to check in until about 7:45. The manager checked us in, pointed thru a window at a table that would be ours (full of guests at the time), and told us it would be a 10-15 min wait. We agreed to the patio based on that. While we (and many others) waited, they offered free wine to everyone except us. After 30 mins, our table was finally ready, and we were seated at a plastic folding table with 4 plastic folding chairs & 2 ottomans. It was far from what we expected, but we decided it was fine for an hour of dinner. After over 30 mins of waiting to order our food, we asked to be moved inside & were offered two separate booths. We settled for the cheap patio seats to stay together. After another hour, the restaurant was closed and mostly empty, and we still didn't have the food we had ordered. We were offered two free desserts that we hadn't ordered and didn't want because we had plans to eat birthday cake when we got home. Almost 2 hrs after ordering & not seeing any food, I complained. Up to that point, the staff was very kind, and we matched their kindness & positivity. They finally moved us inside to a table & still only offered a $50 gift card (so we could give them more money another day) to make up for the trouble. I had to speak to the owner & FIGHT to get 25% off our bill. We would've been ok with that if the owner's wife and the manager hadn't started blaming us for reserving our table "so last minute" and agreeing to patio seating (which we assumed would at least be comfortable). It was our fault for accepting the cheap patio table and having to wait over 2.5 hours for our food to be cooked. They also tried to make excuses about having two large parties that night. We spent 4 hours & over $500 there and were treated like we were at a cheap sports bar. The wait time and experience ruined multiple other plans we had for our evening and even the next morning (since we didn't get home until almost midnight). The food was great, but don't expect to be treated well if there are any problems at all. Unacceptable. We won't be back.

ETA: Drinks were NOT comped as stated below by the owner. That would have made a larger difference on the total bill. Also, the rest of the party was...