Sol De Portugal — Restaurant in North Providence

I never write bad reviews, especially for local/small businesses, but I believe this can serve as feedback to this restaurant.

I decided to take my parents here for their wedding anniversary, as this place is new, and my step-dad is Portuguese My brother came along as well. We had a reservation for 4 at 6:30P.M. When we arrived, we were seated...sort of. The table was designed for 4 seats but for some reason only had 3 seats. My family sat down, and I stayed standing up, waiting for an employee to grab a chair from the upstairs level and bring it down. It was a bit awkward, as the tables are super close to each other, and I was standing randomly as everyone in the packed restaurant were seated. We were then served water, and the employee accidentally spilled some on my mother. He was very apologetic about it but we told him it was no biggie, and we were genuinely not mad or anything! It happens. He's young and it's a busy Saturday. Our orders were taken, but we didn't get our food until 7:45P.M. When we did, my side of rice that came included with my entree wasn't brought out. I thought maybe it was taking a bit longer to cook. I waited. 15 minutes later, I asked the employee who served us the water about my rice. He went and asked the staff. Nothing. 30 minutes later, I told him again that I still didn't have my rice. He asked once more. Nothing. At around 8:30P.M, he asked if we needed anything else before leaving and I bluntly said, "Yeah. My rice that never came out." I ordered a dessert to go. When I received the tab, I spoke to the manager and told her that my entree never came with the rice, even though it showed up on my receipt. She went to the back to fix it. The server who brought us the food said that the rice wasn't charged because it's included in the meal that I ate. Which yeah, I know it's part of my chicken dish, that's why I kept asking for it. I was being made to pay full price for half a meal when I consistently asked where was the other half 😭 the server applied a discount, so that was nice.

The manager apologized and said it was just very busy. I understand. Unfortunately, I saw at least 2 other people also talk to her during my visit, and overheard one couple complain that no one had even taken their drink order.

My family and I were aware that this place is new and is probably figuring out the weekend workflow. But I think it would be really beneficial for them to organize their employees stations and roles better. It was a lot going on and from what we could see, it was just 1 waitress taking everyone's drink/food orders, 1 waiter bringing out the food and dessert samples, and 1 "floater". And all 3 went to every table, instead of dividing tasks.

Once again, I hope the employees who read this don't feel offended, and rather use this review to better coordinate Saturday...

My husband and I went for dinner Saturday night. We had 5:30 reservations. We got there a few minutes early and were seated right away. The place is very small and the tables are very close. The service was good. We ordered calamari which we really didn’t like too much. I had a cup of Portuguese soup which was really good. My husband had the grilled octopus and he truly enjoyed it. I ordered steak with portobello mushrooms, I took a bite and thought it had a weird taste. I asked the waiter if the meat had some kind of liquid smoke on it or something because it tasted very bitter and not really palatable. He said he would ask the chef. In the meantime I took another bite but I definitely could not eat it. After quite a few minutes the waiter came back and told me that the chef said it was just the char from the grill I was tasting. Absolutely not! I informed him I couldn’t eat it. He did offer to get me something else but by that time my husband was already finished with his meal so I declined. They should have taken my meal off the bill but they did not. Sadly I’m not sure if I will...

Terrible experience. Server forgot to take drink orders for half the table, and then we waited half an hour after ordering our meals to be told that they were completely out of chicken, which forced me and a few others to have to scramble and find another dish to order. It took another hour (during which we got no refills for our drinks, mainly because the waiter didn’t drop by to ask due to the amount of metaphorical fires he seemed to be putting out) for the food to arrive, and the food ranged from passable for my own plate (though vastly overpriced- $27 for a six ounce chuck steak and rice is not a good deal) to inedible. My normally reserved grandmother actually lost her temper and complained to the server about the food quality, to which the poor guy awkwardly explained that they were “between chefs”.

I don’t know how long this place has been open for, probably not long, but even with the benefit of the doubt extended this restaurant...