SOCIAL Costa Mesa — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

This an email written to the manager at Social and I never received a response. I even reached out to an owner and he didn't even apologize. I have never had a worse experience in my life. I was partially refunded...rightfully so since I was over charged $140 and the food was AWFUL. I want to thank you for partially refunding our dinner from Wednesday night. I did a good amount of research and picked Social for various reasons from reviews, happy hour selection, outdoor seating and location. I really wanted to make our dinner special and I wanted to treat my son and his friends to a great meal since they don’t get the opportunity to eat outside very often.

The night was rather disappointing. Not only were we overcharged on several items, approximately $100 of overages plus the $40 extra tip I gave the server since she never provided me with an itemized bill and never told me our group would be assessed the 18% gratuity. She did nothing to make our experience special or even just feel normal.

She was a poor communicator and lacked any positive energy towards or group. I hate to say this but I almost feel like she racked up our bill on purpose to get a larger tip and then when I told her 4 times I would leave the tip for the table she never informed me that the gratuity was already included in the total bill and since I didn’t have a bill to look at I was completely unaware.

The state where I come from many restaurants do a surcharge and pay their servers a livable wage so I did look on the website ahead of time to see if that was the case here and I saw nothing mentioned about gratuity or surcharge. The waitress conveniently withheld that information even after I mentioned to her on 4 occasions that I would be covering the tip for the table. She knew very well she was about to get an $80 tip on an over priced bill.

I feel like my trust and niceness was totally taken advantage of and that makes me sad. Unfortunately, nobody cared for their food and most of it was uneaten.

There are more things that upset me like, when my son mentioned to the server that the hamburger is a far cry from the picture on the menu and the patty was quite smaller (the one on the menu had two patties) than the bun. She offered him and his friend an additional hamburger to split. She charged them $15 for that hamburger and NEVER told them upfront they would be charged. It was very bizarre. I asked for a Paloma (from the happy hour menu) with vodka but she neglected to tell me I would be charged $14 plus $2 for the vodka. How does that make any sense? Because I want vodka in it I have to pay full price plus $2. We asked her for suggestions on the happy hour appetizers (we wanted to order 2) and she suggested the bone marrow, shisito peppers, empenadas and Brussels sprouts but the bone marrow wasn’t on the happy hour appetizer menu. She went ahead and charged us $20.

One last suggestion to the chef. The Brussel sprouts would be much more appealing as a savory dish like garlic, balsamic vinegar or soy sauce or sautéed in a spicy sauce. The sugar drenched brussel sprouts are not edible at all! They tasted like a dessert rather than an appetizer. The “grilled cheese” needs a lot of help such as more cheese, a better bread and really everything doesn’t need that very odd bacon jam. The bread was dry and it was totally tasteless. I had 1 1/2 wedges, 2 Brussel sprouts ( not edible either) and that’s it! Also, the bib lettuce dish was terrible, odd and just disgusting.

I live in Minneapolis and we have a lot of foodies there and I had higher expectations here and was completely let down. Sorry for the long message. I am on my flight back to Minneapolis and this whole experience really shook me. I didn’t sleep last night as I really felt taken advantage of and I really needed to share what happened. I really hope you shared this with the higher ups and good changes will...

Grand opening was pretty crazy, but each of my next half dozen visits have been quite enjoyable with a dash of issues each time. I generally sit at the bar and mingle, but I've also taken dates here and did a larger reservation for dinner as well as eaten outside. I've eaten weeknights and weekends and brunch.

Décor is eclectic in that it's trying to be warm with. The hostess' are not welcoming, the bouncers are not welcoming, the waiters are not welcoming. It's as if they are all locals watching tourists ruin their beach aka "where they work". Your best bet is the bar where the staff is on their game. I followed Mike here from Pie Society because he mixed mean drinks and he's fernet minted. Good beer menu for a place that's more of a cocktail place, great variety. Craft everything coming from behind the bar. "trying too hard" is what's coming from the kitchen. It's trying to be Playground 0.5. Personally I like quite a few dishes, the simplicity of the shishito peppers is great for snacking, the bone marrow butter is excellent, it's a commonly used way to not offer aged USDA Prime, but get close to the more intense beef flavor. The Brussel sprouts are colorful, sweet, savory and have varied texture. The perfect appetizer. 3 colors, 3 texture, 3 flavors. The burger is ok, 2 levels below Crow Burger, they need to feature the beef and not the bun or presentation, needs more crust. Cheese platter is ok, but it should really have a crusty bread, a hard, soft and pungent cheese, a beef and a pork charcuterie a fruit. It had it all, but paired all wrong, grocery store level meats and cheeses. Chicken and waffles is doing too much, it's a simple dish that mixes things on 2 ends of the spectrum so having additional textures and toppings takes away from the simplicity of opposites attract. Duck Confit is rich using fats, jus, aged cheddar, egg. I found it only ok, I prefer duck plain or in a risotto. They are god with their eggs here, slow, benedict, 6 minute, sunny side, whatever you want it's good. The mustard Creole hollandaise is subtle, but refreshing.

It can get packed so make reservations, the bar area is small, while the dining area is large. I like to sit outside while my date, who is usually cold sits on the inside. I love the valet parking as that's the way to go because the pool hall crowd next door can be seedy and the bum sleeping on the end of the shopping center pavement/sidewalk is not appealing.

Be prepared to wait. Be prepared to check your bill because it's always going to be wrong. Each time I've either had to send the bill back because it was wrong or was overcharged. The only times that didn't happen was at the bar. It's not that you need reservations it's just that they can be a bit unaccommodating. For a place called Social you could make it more social by leaving the dining away from the bar area, seat 1st come 1st serve and leave the # of reservable tables to no more than 20% of the dinning only capacity. Those are standard industry metrics.

Craft cocktails using fresh ingredients, herbs, spices, and artistically made. Not for the PBR and Jack & Coke crowd. Things are a tad pricey, but it's prime space in CM. the prices do not always reflect good value. ¼ of the menu is decent value, while half of it is inflated and simply not worth it for what you get. I'm not going to say the chef has lost his touch.

Come for Mike's Craft Cocktails, come for good beer, come for social conversation, but it's not fine dining in any way despite the reservations methodology. Bring your own good mood because the front house staff might ruin your night. More than 20% of the reviews list the hostess as an issue, come on ownership/management. This is not isolated, this is an every day, all day issue that is why the review average has declined from the...

I had neighbors tell me that they didn’t like their experience here but I was skeptical because the ambiance from the outside looked great from all the pictures!

So just the other day I decided to go have a drink with a couple of coworkers to check it out.

We ordered two orders of French fries and a round of drinks for the table. When we were done we asked for the check, but they [waiter 1] came back with more French fries (an innocent mistake) but when we politely let him know that we didn’t order any more food the waiter takes it back and another waitress [waitress 2] comes back setting the fries back on our table and claiming “someone ordered more food.” We were all confused at the sudden change in attitude of the environment and we again politely told her that “that was not us” and that we were asking for the check instead. She kept on insisting someone from the table ordered them and said, “I’ll go ask my waiter again…” and took the food with her..

We all sat there confused at the sudden change in atmosphere that some of us almost thought she was kidding at how she was treating us, so one of my friends, to just avoid this ridiculous situation, was prepared to just pay for the fries to-go and move on and not cause anymore frustration as we were all ready to leave anyways.

But when the waitress came back (without the food) she strongly accused us saying “yeah, he said you guys ordered the food,” the strong accusation just upset everyone at the table and especially now that we were being treated as if we were trying to steal and the waitress not even bringing back the food order to the table. Finally, we called the waitress out and said “if you want us to pay for these then bring back the food…” Don’t just come back empty handed yet prepared to force us to pay for an order none of us ordered, especially after we were prepared to just pay for it to avoid conflict.

The waitress just picked up the last of our empty cups and plates and said, “no no no it’s fine I’ll just have them [the chefs] take it back.”

I just thought to myself, “What was the point of all of that then?”

I am sympathetic towards staff who have to deal with ignorant customers throughout the day, as I’ve worked in that industry before, but that doesn’t excuse treating others with such terrible behavior who didn’t do anything to deserve it.

And in the end, when you think about it, all of that…. for two plates of French fries that none...