The Merchant NC — Restaurant in Raleigh

I was very excited to visit this place after seeing it all over Instagram for months. I left feeling very disappointed with my experience. When dining at a restaurant that has small plates listed for an average $15 and cocktails priced in average for $15 I have certain expectations. The decor was chic. Visually this small cocktail bar gorgeous. The food was absolutely delicious. I got the brussel sprouts while my friends got the sliders and Buffalo cauliflower. Of course, more vegan options are always a plus for me but with only one page of small plates I wasn’t expecting much which I’m used to. However, with only about 10 or so small plates listed, 2 of the dishes I asked for they were out of which is always disappointing. Our drinks were delicious. No complaints there. Our waitress was HORRIBLE. She completely ruined our experience. It was hard to walk away looking at the positives because the service was terrible. She never introduced herself. We later found out her name is Nicolette thanks to the check that had her name on it. She was not helpful when we asked questions about the menu and drink recommendations. After, our food arrived she never checked in to see if we needed anything. I watched her look at our table expecting her to stop by as most servers would but she continued to walk on by. She did not appear as if she wanted to be there whatsoever. We saw a man come upstairs who we assumed to be the manager as he was in a button down shirt and turned down the lights. Again, our expectation was that he would stop by the table but nothing. He found two girls at the bar to flirt with. This would have been the perfect opportunity for us to share our feedback and hopefully have our evening rectified but we didn’t see him check in on any of the tables. The person who went above and beyond the most was actually the hostess. She was very sweet and found the answers to our questions that she didn’t have. If you make a reservation online they take a $10 deposit per person. Understandable since the space is very small. What they don’t say on the website though is that the deposit DOES go towards your bill. We assumed so but had no of confirmation until we arrived and asked. I’m not sure if I will go back. I’d love to give it another chance but a $90 check for 3 small plates and 3 cocktails is a bit steep to possibly have another horrible experience. I understand that the restaurant industry is suffering right now, however, I recently visited another downtown restaurant and had a delicious meal with fantastic service. I’m giving this 3 stars to not take away from the food itself and the ambiance but if I was basing the rating on service and experience I’d...

I almost missed the entry but it is like the entire venue, over the top & fabulous.

I love everything about how this place looks. The decor is spot on, especially for date or cozy vibes. The drink also have a great aesthetic to them.

Unfortunately that's where the positives ended for me.

The food: The menu was a difficult one to navigate being that I was with a vegan guest. The food menu has good variety aside from that. I orders the steak fries since there were no sliders at the time. The steak wa what you would expect given they are not a restaurant the only problem was that it was slathered in BBQ sauce. The fries were okay though.

The drinks: As one other guest mentioned the alcohol seems to be missing from the drinks. This was extreme disappointing given they are a cocktail bar. Also our bowl had an unusually large amount of ice served with the with the drink aside from the lack in alcohol. I would recommend that they also provide a larger ladle and use the same glass skulls as on the bar instead of scuffed plastic ones.

The service: It was okay. My guest and I were greeted by someone and the bartender was kind enough. That literally could have been the saving grace of this visit.

I'm not sure if u would...

Service/Server As a business owner there’s one thing that’s on top of my list and that’s customer service. The Merchant did not deliver in that area… at least to us.

I took my girlfriend on a Thursday(October 26th 2023) night for her birthday. The greeter at the door was helpful and kind. She walked us upstairs to our seat which was at the bar. From there it was down hill…

We didn’t receive ANY acknowledgment from the 4 employees behind the bar. No “hi” “we’ll be with you in one second” “can i get you anything”. We did receive some water about 5min into sitting at an empty bar which was even more weird because they STILL didn’t say anything as we were handed the water. There was literally one individual sitting at the bar with us. There was more employees than customers at the bar. We really thought we were invisible.

We left 15min into being seated.

Needless to say we left because obviously we don’t fit the type of customer they want to serve. We took our TIME and money to whisky kitchen and ended up having a...