Bar + Cart Restaurant and Lounge — Restaurant in Saint Paul

Update: I’ve been back 3 times and the drinks are still amazing and the food keeps getting better. Rotating menu and have been impressed every time!!!!

This place was overall a good experiance. We started with 2 drinks from the menu so we could add to our review. My partner did the Merry Pickford (1st drink photo below on the left) was an awesome cocktail and was not too sweet but very versatile for any pallet. I did the clover club to start and I think people who love sweet would highly highly enjoy I just found it to be too sweet with to thick of an egg white layer (I usually love cocktails with egg whites and understand the layer can vary) Again I believe sweet lovers would enjoy as an individual I wasn’t a fan but as a cocktail lover I know that others would. I feel their strong suit is their apps. We got the hummus which was delicious, my personal opinion is they tried to do too much with the tomatoes and olives and generous amount of balsamic but felt it took away from the hummus itself which I highly enjoyed. We also did the Burrata at first I was like “this is just ok” but it really grew on me and After a few bites it was probably my favorite thing of the night. The pesto and spices blended really well and baguette was perfectly toasted.

Next up is the main dishes (last pictures) chicken Piccata . I was unfortunately extremely disappointed. This was what I was most excited for when I read white wine lemon butter and it fell so short. My partner and I both agreed it was the most bland pasta we have ever tasted. It almost felt like they may have forgotten some of the essential ingredients, that or they used too much of a poor quality white wine. I wouldn’t recommend this as the pasta and chicken were both flavorless, cooked to perfection but flavorless none the less.

Waygu Steak Tips - The mashed potatoes were amazing and the steak was cooked really well. Great chewiness as well as flavor. I really liked this dish. It was filling and the portion size was generous. I will be honest I don’t think the steak would hold up on its own as I feel the mashed potatoes really made this dish stand out.

Feedback- new restaurant that I see a ton of potential in. The chairs felt as if they were just sanded down so I would recommend seat covers to the restaurant . The chairs did tear a hole in my partners tights so just wear jeans or pants that are not thin.

Overall ambiance was 10/10 and I will definitely be going back. They just opened and still working out the kinks. I know this place will be killer and once I try again I will...

We had date night and went to Bar and Cart. We were greeted immediately and taken to our table. The first thing you notice is that it’s very loud. It’s well decorated with cute little oil lamps at every table. We started out with some drinks. I got the seasonal Cunning Monkey which is banana infused aged rum, Velvet Falernum, Banana Liqueur, Pineapple Gomme, lime juice. Wow! This was delicious and refreshing. My wife got the Angel's in The Garden which is gin, lavender, Creme de Violette, Concord Grape Acid. Nice floral taste on the back side. I’m not a gin fan but this was amazing! We started off Burrata Pesto which is warmed burrata, herbed pesto, pistachio, golden raisins, local bare honey, parmesan, crostini. Amazing! Flavors all worked, the honey was so delicious with that salty crunch of the pistachio! Probably the best pesto I’ve had. This is a must try. For mains we got the shrimp Po Boy which is Grilled cajun shrimp, cajun remoulade, jalapenos, tomatoes, shredded lettuce. Po Boys are my favorite and unfortunately this fell flat to me. Shrimp and remoulade were delicious but it was served in a top split hotdog bun. A disservice to the Po Boy. We also got the Coney Island which is Coney island beef, yellow mustard, white onion, sport peppers. Initially we were not impressed but my wife mentioned they skipped the yellow mustard. We asked for some and wow that made a huge difference. Super flavorful and the Coney Island beef dog was delicious. We also wanted to try the chicken schnitzel which is garlic & sour cream smashed red potatoes. Lightly pan fried chicken breast, southern white gravy. This was worst of the 3. Lacked flavor and had a burnt taste. My wife scrapped some of the gravy away and you could see the chicken was burnt. Overall the place was nice. We definitely will be back for their appetizers and drinks. Side note they add 20% gratuity on your check which is split between...

This is one of my favorite restaurants in St Paul, the food is always fantastic with huge portions and a great cocktail and cocktail menu.

However I had the worst service I’ve ever had at any restaurant ever on 3/10. Came in for dinner to celebrate with friends, after we got seated it was about 10 minutes before our server greeted us and took our drink order and it took about 10-15 minutes to get our drinks and we put in an order of oysters after we finally got our drinks, ate those and then put in another order of oysters and a different appetizer. Got our 2nd order of oysters and then sat waiting and waiting for the other appetizer to come out with the server never stopping by our table, after about 30 minutes the server comes over to ask if we want the check…. I said “well we’re supposed to have this appetizer coming and no we want to put in our dinner orders”. Out of all the times we ordered things she only checked how everything was tasting once. We were at the restaurant for 3 hours and at least a full hour of that was waiting for service. And there were only 3 other tables the majority of the time we were there.

As someone who is in the restaurant industry I have never thought about not tipping at least 20% and definitely not about not tipping at all, but I wouldn’t have given her a dollar if it wasn’t for the auto gratuity. Our check was over $200 so because of the auto gratuity we were forced to tip her $40 when her service wasn’t even worth $4.

Note to the owner- if you’re gonna have a 20% auto gratuity for every check, make sure you have employees that live up to 20% gratuity standards. As a table full of industry people we were in shock of how bad the service was. If I had her as my server again I would truly walk out and go eat somewhere...