Chicora Alley — Restaurant in Greenville

Place sucks. It's one of the "industry bars" on South Main Street, so regulars are largely made up of service industry employees of nearby restaurants and bars. If that's you and you've already been going regularly, know the staff, etc, then you'll probably have a great time. But if it's not, good luck getting a drink.

I've been to this spot several times. Once, I was there with several friends on the back side of the second story bar. Friends had already been served since they'd arrived before me. Getting the bartender's attention was a challenge in itself, despite it not being overly busy. I thought I'd keep it simple and ordered a Corona. I had to ask this dude (Carson, if I remember correctly) THREE TIMES for this freakin' beer. Not because he was busy and didn't have time for it, but because he kept getting distracted talking to friends and other regulars. Hospitality industry, sure. Be hospitable and make conversation. But if you've given me the attention enough to place an order, I think another ten seconds to open a bottle isn't too much to ask for. First time, okay. We're human. Things happen. But after the third time asking, over ten minutes after the first, I just left.

Another time, I was in with some friends of one of the managers. She greeted us and offered to take our order, joking that none of the bartenders were going to do it. She knows. And she's right.

Lastly, I went in to visit some friends and ordered again, a Corona, this time from the front bar. Bartender told me they were out and offered me a Corona Light. On a Friday night, I'd kind of expect some of the more common beers to be stocked and ready for the rest of the weekend. No big deal, though. I wouldn't even mention it if not for what happened next. Toward the end of that beer, I found myself at the back bar where Carson, again, was working. I asked him for a Corona and he immediately pulled one out of the cooler, a vast and noted improvement from my previous experience. He asked me if I had a tab open, which I thought was a little strange since I was simultaneously handing off my credit card to him to open one. He asked me if I wanted to close it, and I said yes. He brought me a receipt with a $15 total. Even though this was Corona - not Corona Light - I still suspected something was off. I asked him how much was this? How much for one beer? He asked, "one beer?" So I repeated myself, this time louder. Turns out he actually asked, "what beer?" and I could tell in the tone of his response that he was offended by me repeating myself. I'll take blame for that one, but I was also curious what other beer he'd think I was asking about if not the one he'd just handed me ten seconds prior. But again, I gave him the benefit of the doubt; I could've been asking about a second one for a friend, who knows? I picked up the Corona and he told me it was $4. I showed him my receipt and asked him what he rang me up for. After studying it, he crumpled it up, threw it over his shoulder and said something snarky. I don't remember what it was because at that point, I was so ready to leave. I gave him 4 additional dollar bills, said aloud "this is why I don't come to this bar," and left. He shouted at me to leave through a particular door, acting as if he was kicking me out and I was the problem. I'm sorry, but if you can't ring up a single beer, I'm not sure you're qualified for really any job. He's allowed to make a mistake and hit the wrong button, but if his response is regularly what I saw, then the "hospitality" industry certainly isn't for him. If he was intoxicated, as friends have told me is not uncommon, I'd understand some skewed judgment. Not an excuse here. Until this guy can figure out how to serve a beer, much less mix ingredients and make a cocktail, I'll be spending my money at a bar that can handle that.

While I'm here, the hours of business have not been updated on google as of the posting of...

A bit of a disappointment... Having read the reviews, we were expecting good, uncomplicated food with the risk that service would be slow and inattentive. We were disappointed on the former, but expectations were met on the latter; the service was bumbling and inefficient.

The evening started with a hostess who wasn't sure what to do with our reservation, then migrated to an assistant hostess who didn't know what table to take us to. While we were waiting, the lead hostess told the group after us, a couple out on an apparent date, that they would have to wait 30+ in the bar for their table -- despite there being two-tops that went unused the entire time we were there.

We waited for almost 30 minutes before a waiter greeted us. He seemed genuinely apologetic and embarrassed, but then wanted to know exactly who we had dealt with and who had shown us to our table so he "could go talk to them." That should have been dealt with internally and not involved us.

The appetizer order was messed up and required a re-firing. The waiter told us that he was taking it off the bill due to their mistake. I was surprised to see that they included it on the bill anyway. An innocent mistake? Or were they attempting to sneak it past me?

The dinners were hit and mix. Some were good. Others were not. One chicken dinner featured chicken meat that was so dry it could have passed for jerky. One street taco dinner was very tasty.

In the land of hit and miss, this was a miss. It strikes me that this is a good idea, but that management/operations have faltered. Rather than making sure everyone's experience is a good as can be, the largely millennial staff runs around, trying to put out fires. And it doesn't need to be that way. If it were just run more professionally ....

UPDATE (05/13/2019): Based on the response below (in its entirety: "do you respond to your reviews??"), it would appear that my concerns about poor management and a general lack of professionalism were...

This place has something called “EDM Alley” every other Tuesday. Me and my friends (who are all 20 years old) have been to this bar several times in the past. We just come to hang out and dance since we are underage and there are no other places in greenville that are 18+. A couple weeks ago we walked in and this man who was not part of the staff was trying to ID people saying “The boss told me to”. We told him that they never ID us, or seem to have a problem with us being there because we are 18+. It is not advertised that this bar is 21+ anywhere. One of the bartenders said we were allowed through if we were just hanging out. we had lots of fun that night and were planning on going again in a couple weeks. Once we showed up again on the night of May 21st, we walked right in like we usually do, no ID checks, and once we got settled and put our stuff down, The same bartender from the other week we were there said, Do y’all have IDs? You have to be 21. I politely expressed that we have been there several times before and nobody had a problem. He said it didn’t matter and we had to be 21 or get out. We weren’t drinking, we weren’t even near the bar at all. If we are not causing a disruption and we aren’t intoxicated, why is it all the sudden not okay if we are there? This bartender kicked us out, rudely I must say. We were not happy that we had drove out this far for nothing. I understand rules change, but please have it advertised if...