Sweetwater Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Duluth

I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to visit this place. First time visiting Duluth, and we’ll save my review of the city for another time, but here’s a simple, unfiltered, one-word teaser, awful. After attending a great concert, my boyfriend and I were trying to find a bar to have a nightcap. This bar was our third choice, because the other two bars we had tried were unimpressive and smoking-friendly. Non-smoking bars didn't seem to exist in Duluth. Anyways, we were ubering to our third choice feeling a little discouraged by our experiences, but optimistic that Sweetwater would save us from the misery that is Duluth. If you can imagine My Cousin Vinny crossed with Deliverance, this bar would be in that movie. However, we tried not to judge this bar by it’s cover, and we decided to give it a shot. We step inside, and what do you know, it’s smoking-friendly. I walk up to the bartender and ask if they have a patio, without looking up she gives me a short “no” and continues typing up on her register. Now, I ask if they have a non-smoking section, and still, I get no eye contact and an ever shorter “no”. Without any other words, she walks away. Well, her horrible attitude was enough to decide to leave, but before we made our exit, I just wanted her manager to know they were about to lose some customers. I asked the bartender if I can speak with the manager, and this time she looked at me and stated “Baby, I am the manager.” After a bit of back and forth, she brought out a guy who identified himself as “Buddy the Manager”. I hate to throw around personal insults, but I am fairly certain this guy had an IQ of 52. I tried to explain my grievance with the bartender, but he just kept looking off into the distance (I’m not sure what these people’s deal is with eye contact) telling me “we do not have a patio”. I swear he told me that at least six times, and he wouldn’t allow me to speak. Eventually, he stated “I don’t give a f**k about you”, and proceeds to walk away. Clearly, this guy was not the manager. The owner of this establishment should be embarrassed by his bar staff’s behavior. Needless to say, this was the worst bar experience I’ve ever had. I will never be back. See ya never, Sweetwater Bar and Grill. See ya...

Drove 2 hours here to see a friend perform. We wanted to buy food and were told that the restaurant was attached to the music venue. After ordering food, we made sure to ask our waitress if it would be fine to bring this back over through the linking doors and she assured us that it was as long as we had our wristbands that we used to get inside the music venue. When we get our food roughly 30 minutes later after our waitress tells us she's going to check on it since we hadn't received it yet, we proceeded through the linking doors to sit with our friends until we get told by some guy that we aren't able to bring any "outside" food in since they have a kitchen there. Okay. Not only was that not clear considering there is no sign or kitchen in sight, but we were quite literally told that it would be okay before we ordered the food. We tell him this and he proceeds to tell us "No one told you that" and rushes us out. Now, we get rules are rules and completely understand most rules about having no outside food, but we did not appreciate being called liars about this when we tried to specifically make sure about this. Plus, the waitresses were constantly walking back and forth between those doors and cleaned up the music venue afterwards! Where is the disconnect? Won't be...

My first review of this place was 4 stars so please don't think I'm being unfair. The food is decent, burgers can be overcooked and onion rings are always undercooked. The alcoholic beverages aren't as watered down as other places. However, the service is always slow!!! And some of(most of) the servers/bartenders have an attitude and don't care. The new girl and the younger cook have been the only exception to that rule so far. But all of the games they offer start an hour later than the website says except for poker. But beware, you have to buy at least thirty dollars of drinks or food to get any REAL service. Especially if you are playing poker. But even if there are two extra poker players having around they don't let them play about 45 minutes after the game starts. There's NOWHERE else in the ATLANTA area that does that. But hey it's an in house group so you better know someone or be liked by the tournament director to become the exception. I went in just now and he didn't tell me I could get into the game until after I order a $10 drink(which I couldn't drink because I wasn't allowed into the game)... Not happy. But I saw two other people new at the table after he told me I wasn't allowed in... NOT COOL. Karaoke ALWAYS starts late. Comedy is always late....