Madra Rua Irish Pub — Restaurant in North Charleston

Today, my wife and I went for a St. Patrick's Day early lunch at 11:30AM. Not very crowded yet. Nice place but a little on the dark side. Ordered Shepard's Pie cup as an appetizer, Fish and Chips and Reuben Sandwich.

My first minor problem was that the Shepard's Pie dish came to us at once. Did I need to tell the server that this was an appetizer? Anyway, this dish was good. The real problems started with the fish fillet in the Fish and Chips dish. It was way over fried. The batter was beyond a golden yellow into a brown color and some parts were even cooked burned black. I left it alone intending to tell the server for it to be returned. Next I turned to the Reuben sandwich. I removed the top rye pieces to see what it looked like and one side had virtually no corned beef on it at all - I mean one stringy little piece taking up the end closest to the middle of the sandwich. Three quarters of the half slice of bread was bare bread with Russian dressing on it. When the server came over I pointed these flaws out and she actually had to ask if i wanted to return these. I said yes.

When the dishes returned, both dishes had french fries dumped on top them as if it a bit of a protest from the kitchen The fries were over cooked on the well done side I might add. The fish fillet in the Fish and Chips was cooked better and it was okay. When I turned to the Reuben Sandwich, I removed the top bread piece to see better portions of corned beef, but then noticed, there was no sauerkraut anywhere. Not underneath, no where. I rechecked the menu because I thought I read the Reuben Sandwich was supposed to come with sauerkraut in it. Sure enough, yes. When the server came over, I showed her the sandwich which had no sauerkraut in it. We searched together and we found a little sliver of a sauerkraut on one slice. She asked what I wanted to do? I said get a sandwich according to the menu. She got me a small plastic cup of sauerkraut. This was not the Reuben Sandwich presentation I was looking for.

Needless to say, when the check was paid, no tip. I wrote that the reason was primarily a kitchen failure but upon reflection it was also a server failure for the reasons noted. I left my cell phone in case anyone ever wanted to call to talk to me personally. Let's see if anyone calls. I write this to improve the place,...

We went there for brunch this weekend and were treated very poorly by a waitress there. She was extremely rude and volatile when my pregnant friend asked about the asterisk for a warning on raw food(which was on just about everything on the brunch menu except hashrowns, which was concerning for all of us). When my friend explained she was pregnant and could not have anything that was potentially raw, the waitress cut her off and said “I don’t know how else you want me to explain this to you.” We we’re trying to order sausage biscuits and gravy so we were confused as to why it had the raw warning on it. Then the waitress was extremely rude when taking our orders. This all made my pregnant friend break out into tears so we decided to leave. I was so embarrassed because I recommended the place and my two friends had never been there. The food and atmosphere is usually amazing(besides all the smoking outside, so much so that it is hard to even find a place inside where you are not getting at least whiffs of smoke on a regular basis). When I told the person behind the bar to cancel our order(must have been the manager) he offered to pay for our meal and change our server and he was very kind. At that point we went across the street and got sausage biscuits and gravy from DIG for $3 cheaper. Was extremely out off by this experience, and I will think twice about recommending this place even though it has been one of my all time favorites...

I stopped in to meet a group of friends. A very nice server greeted me and told me to sit where I would like. I asked if the outdoor bar was available. She said yes and told me how to get there. I saw a small gate and entered because there was no signage or indication that I was not supposed to enter. I go to have a seat at the bar and someone who I believe was the bartender asked me if the gate was closed. I said yes and I shut it behind me. He stated “It was closed because I wanted it that way”. Still confused, I said, well it is shut. I then realized he was saying it was closed because he didn’t want me in there. I explained that the inside employee told me to come out there. He left to go inside without any kind of explanation. I immediately left and sat outside the gate so I could contact my group and have us go somewhere else. After about 5-10 minutes the outdoor bartender approached me and asked for my order. I explained that we would be going elsewhere due to his earlier greeting. No hello, how can I help you or I’m sorry we’re not open yet. Just a rude greeting about the gate being closed and that I was obviously bothering him. First impressions are everything and I’m so happy we took our group of 15...