Bernie's Social Bar — Restaurant in Kennesaw

This review is for the owners and anyone who loves good food and yearns for a neighborhood "third place" to call home:

The restaurant has a modern, electric atmosphere and is in one of the best location in Kennesaw. The menu entices customers with a promising array of favorites and unique dishes, sides, and salads. The staff works very hard to please and for the most part, they are topnotch. The owner's daughter is a shining example.

The problems with Bernies are twofold. The food is very inconsistent. Some days is really surprisingly excellent, and some days you will get one cup of thickly-sliced onions (an unlisted ingredient) and a tablespoon of tuna over stale nachos or a dry and tasteless Mac and Cheese with lobster scraps.

The second issue is the owner's wife. She is unaware of the condescending, defensive, argumentative, and downright unpleasant persona she projects. She leaves you feeling "you should feel thankful" for eating in their establishment. And when something is not quite right or you observe food sitting under the heat lamps for 15 mins while she chides the staff or intimidates customers, she is defensive, unrepentant, and far to quick to placate, brush aside the issues, and void your check.

Taking away a customer's agency to pay in good conscience for items like alcohol or food that was not at issue, leaves the customer looking foolish and cheap; as though the customer needs charity to make them happy or simply go away. This is rude. Especially despite customer-insistence to pay for services rendered.

We live in Kennesaw within walking distance of Bernie's. We consider all restaurants we regularly frequent as extensions of our home and our own kitchen. We develop relationships with the staff and truly enjoy eating at our local restaurants.

However, when restaurants we enjoy and are rooting for, places we want to be successful, continually fail to fulfill expectations and promises, are tone-deaf to feedback, and treat customers with arrogant and defensive posturing, it becomes quite frustrating and we have to move on.

Mrs. Bernie, please leave the customer interaction to your staff who are much better at it and far less jaded. Pay your cooks and staff well enough to avoid turnover and inconsistency in your product. Be transparent with ingredients. And for heaven's sake, no one needs a full cup of onions in their tablespoon...

IF YOU ARE HANDICAPPED, THIS IS NOT THE RESTAURANT FOR YOU!!! We went here last night to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday. Before we went, I called to see if they had a seat for 4 - there was no waiting. We got there about 5 minutes later, and were not able to be seated because my mother is handicapped (in a wheelchair scooter). The only tables they had were high tops or upstairs - upstairs where there's no elevators. In a lot older building, no elevator is usually acceptable, but this restaurant seemed to have been remodeled if it was built before ADA was implemented. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, when we were told there would be a little wait, we sat to wait. We've done this before at other restaurants, and it's usually not a problem. The staff was all very nice and apologetic; however, we waited for about 40 minutes before my mom had to use the restroom and we still hadn't been seated. I took her to the bathroom while the rest of our party waited. In the restroom, we found that she couldn't even wash her hands because the sinks were not made for handicapped people. Yes, there was a handicapped stall, and the restroom was very nice and new. BUT, this was NOT designed for a handicapped person at all. How can a new concrete sink not be designed for the handicapped in mind when in a public building? Heading back to our still waiting party, we were told that there would be another 10 minutes wait. We were committed at this point. However, about 20 minutes later we were told that they had misjudged the tables and were waiting for one table to leave and that they needed to check if they had wanted dessert yet. 10 minutes later, we overheard that they ordered dessert. We were now on our phones googling what was nearby because we knew that it would be at least another 30-40 minutes before we could be seated. We were never told of that delay we overheard and just decided to leave after waiting an hour and a half for a table when we were told on the phone there was no wait. How's the food? We'll never know because we're not going anywhere my mom isn't welcome. Had they told us when we went in that it would be an hour wait, we would have happily gone elsewhere and come back another time. Because of the delay, my mother-in-law's birthday dinner was pretty much ruined and it insured we'd never go back and never...

Mixed review but a recent visit ruined Bernie’s for us going forward. First time we went here we had a great experience and our server was awesome. Raw oysters were fresh served on ice, drinks we’re good as was our burgers. However, our last experience here was much different, my girlfriend and I sat at the bar and the bartenders were not the most attentive and our food/drink orders took quite a bit of time to come out. That wasn’t the biggest problem for us though, we ordered the raw oysters here again and when they finally arrived we were very disappointed. One, the oysters were not served on ice, this might have been the first time that’s happened since I’ve eaten here and other places. The oysters were also warm which to us signaled a food safety concern. After seeing this we sent the oysters back and then witnessed some unprofessional behavior from a blond woman who appeared to be the manager. The bartender and the manager were talking about the oyster situation 4 feet in front us. The manager argued “who cares if they aren’t served on ice, they’re refrigerated” and she rolled her eyes, snatched the oyster plate from the bartender and stormed back into the kitchen.

I would like to think this manager didn’t know we were the ones who sent the oysters back but regardless, this was unacceptable behavior and service. Hopefully whoever needs to see this review, sees the message and coaches...