Oak & Stone — Restaurant in North Port

Just went in for my second visit, the first one was one of the best experiences I had, but then the most recent one on December 7th 2024 was one of the worst restaurant experiences I have ever had in the past few years.

We went for brunch and got seated immediately and our drink orders were promptly taken. Drinks were dropped off and the food orders were taken, great all was well. The food then took 25 or so minutes, but when it arrived it was not the right temperature and seemed like it was sitting for a bit. The cheese scrambled eggs seemed to have no cheese and an awful texture like they were sitting in a hot bar like you’d get from a buffet, and were lukewarm. The over medium eggs ordered with a different dish were extremely over seasoned and overcooked, yet they were also lukewarm. The biscuits were good, but the tomato jam was straight up bad.

You might be wondering to yourself why didn’t you tell the server? Well after coming by asking if we needed anything else which we did our drinks are empty and were empty from waiting for the food, they seemed to just disappear for an extended amount of time, in that time both tables next to us had their server check in twice (if not more), it got to the point where we just wanted to leave and not even try to get the food fixed. A member of our party ended up going up to our server to ask for a box and the check since another hour could have probably gone by before we’d get another visit from them.

I’m not sure if the server just had a large party elsewhere or what but it seemed like they had tables all over the place versus a dedicated section which might have contributed to the sense of them just disappearing.

If it were not for the prior visit that was wonderful this would be a 1 star review.

TL;DR: It’s a coin toss if you’ll have...

Sundays here are not advisable. The scowls on the faces of 20 families waiting outside should have enlightened me. There is a seating policy of waiting 15 minutes for a reservation to arrive. That is the first bottleneck. This Oak & Stone on Sundays has a farmers market next to it. So people reserve online and O&S allows 15 minutes for them to stop shopping to check in after notification. It's kind but, That creates a waiting list with 20 people ahead of you when you arrive and a 40-50 minute wait while you watch 30 empty seats. The policy needs to have a splash page advising people who reserve online that " their position is only good for 5 minutes upon notification". It is unjust to keep people waiting in the sun while reservations go shopping and are not ready to eat. The second bottleneck, Kitchen is not staffed to meet the seating demands. One hour and a half after arriving not even the appetizer at the bar is ready. The idea was to enjoy lunch not suffer operation issues created by bad ownership policy. Listen to the people doing the work and don't apply standard policies across the chain. I watched the runners walk around guessing which tables ordered the plates in their hands and had to ask customers if it was their food. Operations are not good here right now. Our runner brought me a cold burger and fries. The food sat. It was a 2+ hour lunch. The positive: The food has always been tasty and the service staff is very friendly. Ask me if I will ever come back on a Sunday. It's an emphatic no. I'll probably skip the spot for the...

This place technically has a ton of seating with outdoor/indoor/upstairs seating. It started raining when we were there and they were clearly scrambling moving the outside diners to inside while there was already a wait line in general going on. And it's hot inside because there is open bar window thingy for access to outside dining.

The beer walls are obviously amazing, but having them both upstairs (20+ taps) and downstairs (30+ taps) is clearly an accident waiting to happen. There is an elevator, that wasn't operational yet but I can see people not wanting to wait and risking two flights of stairs to get back to their table.

I had the most disapointing cheese pizza of my life. When I order a cheese pizza...I expect cheese on it. There was a spattering of a cheese mix then four chunks of mozerella. It was essentially crust and sauce. i also added olives for $1-2 upcharge and got a total of 3 sliced olives per slice of pizza. Are you kidding me?! My advice is only get their specialty pizza or any other item, those seem to be loaded up. Fried pickles were great! The bourbon wings were great!

In conclusion, I have mixed feeling about this place. The prices for food should give you more, the beer walls on two levels is asking for trouble and menu items are hit or miss.

The gluten free options are very limited as well which doesn't effect my rating just an FYI. (my friend could only get a side salad or gf crust pizza) They said even the...