Safari's Brick Oven & Grille — Restaurant in Hendersonville

*Updated- Upgraded on second visit! Food was good and service was better! They have it dialed in now. Visit if you have the chance. From 3 stars to 4!

This place is the old throw back to the restaurant that use to be in Rivergate. The menu is the same, with the same favorites. The new location is the old Tilted Kilt in Hendersonville. Location: The location has "safari" themed murals. It is bright but small. To make a full size kitchen it appears that they had to take seating space from the way the Tilted Kilt was arranged. The bar area is nice and well stocked. This place is NOT large group friendly. All tables are booths with the exception of a long counter type seating in the center of the dining room. It will hold12 comfortably. The booths are 4 seaters with a chair on the end to accommodate a seating of 5. Again not group friendly.

Wait: The place is new to the area so as expected it was packed. The wait was quoted at 45 minutes, though it wasn't that long. With that being said there were folks that entered after us and were seated first. I think they knew the staff. Not a great way to do business. Waiting area is small, so be prepared to stand and have people hovering over your table.

Service: Service was frantic. The place is new so I think they are still getting their routine. Everyone was nice and helpful, but seemed that the staff was scatter-brained about what to do. Our server Brianna was good. She tried hard. Took care of us as well as she could but you could tell that she was trying to work within a system that was not well established yet. There were LONG waits for food to table times. Ticket times were way off of the expected 15-20 min expectation. Our server was super apologetic and explained that the kitchen was overwhelmed. She kept us informed. From time of seating to leaving we spent a hour and a half or so Waiting for the food was time consuming.

Food: The food quality was great. It compensated for the wait time to some extent. The filet was super tender (though a bit under cooked for medium well) and had good flavor. The 8 oz was a large portion for what other 8 oz steaks places are. The baked potato was hot and tender. The Vegies were steamed to perfection. The BBQ chicken was good. The chicken was tender though the BBQ sauce was a bit much. The rice was perfect. All in all the food was good for the value.

Our server and management were well aware of their short-comings. They offered a large discount with out my asking. The server was the one that alerted her manager of our wait. The compensation was nice and shows that they know there is improvements to be made and they want us to return. We will give it some time before we return. Hopefully the bugs...

My husband and I just left. Wow..Menu says ask server for details for combination offers. When asked for a starter by the hostess, because our server was busy, we asked about combination options. The hostess didn't know. The other girl who told us our server was busy and was getting our drinks didn't know either. So fine we ordered the Largo 3 meats come with this.. Beef skewers, bbq chicken, and ribs. We ordered our salad and side with this dish served over rice. Now we we're splitting this giving we don't eat big portions. Got the salad in 1 bowl after asked to be split. The salad came out at the same time as our entree. The entree had the 2 skewers over rice and veggies. No chicken, no ribs, and asked if we needed anything. Ok, yes how about the whole meal! She didn't even notice. So came back the server said they are out of ribs. At this point I'm ready to leave. I mean the bread they served was so hard I couldn't eat it. So we substituted salmon. Waited another 20 minutes go the food finally with no fresh sides, and our skewers we're cold along with rice and veggies we were originally served. The manager never came to our table one time. So we asked for check not even tempting to eat this disaster of what was supposed to be a good relaxing meal after a long work week in the same industry. The girl who took our order I hope at least got the tip I left giving she wasn't our server. The mystery manager took of the Largo meal for $19.00, and "ONLY" Charged us for the skewers which came out being $16.00 plus my husband's coke. Well if ribs and chicken only cost $3.00 then those 2 skewers are awfully expensive compared to the chicken and ribs. I guess the chick-fil-A cows are some what happy they might not be bought as much. Anyways I put my heavy steak knife in the bread, as it stood upright, and called it a night. Never be back. Even though I'd love to find who the mysterious manager was like I'm...

My girlfriend and I have tried Safari twice now and both times have been fairly disappointing. On our first visit her pasta was pretty good, but my burger was mediocre at best. The service was unremarkable, fine.

The second trip was full of problems however. First off, the server forgot my drink and just brought water instead until I had to remind them. Secondly, we had all sorts of problems ordering food. We ordered the "Ross's steak for two" which is a neat but confusing concept. The menu simply says 24 oz of steak, two salads, and two sides. Turns out that just meant we each got a 12 oz steak (which is fine), two sides each, but our server never once asked about salads and we never got them. Then when it arrived I had one of her sides, and she had what looked like a double sized portion of a side we had both ordered, but at least we think we got everything we were actually able to order.

The worst part by far was the food itself. The brussel sprouts were terribly undercooked and nearly inedible, the asparagus was cut too low and flavorless, and the steaks... we ordered medium and medium rare and recieved medium rare and rare respectively, both undercooked. Which would've been fine except my steak was completely flavorless; it tasted like water. Not juicy, watery. I've never, ever encountered a steak so improperly cooked, and I've had better "well done" steaks. The only part of my meal that wasn't completely disappointing was a loaded baked potato.

Then it seems on this occasion they had let somebody's dog in the restaurant?! At first I thought a kid had just made a weird noise, but as it continued it was undeniably the sound of a smaller dog barking.

Needless to say, we won't be going back...