Social Roost — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

Review: Social Roost, St Petersburg, FL St. Petersburg, FL, has been transforming into a unique cultural experience with vibrant stores and locally crafted products, dozens of local activities, museums, and attractions, but most importantly - leading the transformation are new restaurants and bars popping up every week that inspire us to go on a culinary journey. As a seasoned traveler, having explored 68 countries and 36 states, I approach restaurant reviews with a clear criterion: Taste, Presentation, and Service. My goal is to provide an impartial perspective, highlighting both the commendable and deficient aspects of dining establishments. Ambiance: Entering the restaurant, you can feel the vibe of a local gathering catering to friends, families, business lunches, and dates, along with the mixture of music, laughter, and conversation in the area. The décor brings together a combination of modern décor and sophistication, artsy flare, and a carefully curated bar area that is used to craft cocktails representative of a fusion of regions of the globe. There are two seating areas, tables throughout the dining area and a set of booths on the back wall. My advice to patrons visiting this restaurant is if you want to have a casual conversation without having to scream or speak loudly, do not sit on the back wall. The acoustics were terrible. We could barely hear each other speak. Food: We visited this restaurant for Saturday Brunch, which allowed us to choose from an array of breakfast and lunch items. Unlike many restaurants that limit the selections, I found the menu provided a great deal of options for a wide variety of customers, making it challenging to choose which dishes to tantalize one's taste buds. Chicken and Biscuits: a dish that often dawns many restaurants throughout the Southeast, this dish was truly elevated to not only represent the customary expectations of an authentic southern cuisine but goes beyond simple flavors to truly touch on all your senses from the warm flaky biscuits, the perfectly cooked and seasoned crispy chicken, a rich and savory flavor-filled sausage gravy, and an amazing blend of flavors raising the bar with their collard greens. Brunch Bowl: Bowls can be either really good or really bad, depending on the chef who curates them. The largest mistake a chef makes is having overpowering ingredients that take away from all the flavors of the ingredients. This chef truly prepared a bowl with the balance of many different ingredients, allowing you to taste all the true flavors of the black beans, roasted corn, citrus pico de gallo, Peruvian chicken, pio pio sauce, poached egg, and pickled red onions laying on a bed of white rice. It truly brings the color and the flavors, and it magically brings new flavor profiles to every bite you take. Egg Benedict: Placed on top of a flaky, buttery, and warm biscuit, this dish is topped with earthy, smoky, and flavorful collard greens, a crispy pork belly with savory flavors and slowly melting in your mouth, a poached egg providing that burst of runny egg yolks, and topped with their homemade hollandaise sauce which provides the velvety and tangy flavors to blend the flavors to top off this absolutely perfected modern view of a classic. Overall, this restaurant truly brings all the necessary ambiance, service, and culinary dishes that truly elevate themselves beyond many of the restaurants throughout the St. Petersburg area – along with much of the...

TL;DR: This restaurant is severely mismanaged and God forbid they are busy, because you’ll have an awful experience. Prepare in advance to fetch your own server and silverware.

We (five queer, black women) came here for St. Pete Pride very happy and excited about eating here after reading reviews. Two of our group joined us from out of town so we made a reservation for 1pm about a week in advance. We arrive and there’s a drag show going on, which is lovely, but we were told our table was currently occupied by some older, white men. The hostess, who was clearly stressed and trying her best, said they would work on getting us a table and then we proceeded to watch them tiptoed around the men at the table, and ultimately, did not make them leave to the reservations made in advance. Instead, they tapped on a 4-top of black women sitting on the opposite side and told them to move to the high top.

The staff, who was clearly stressed about busy day already, scrambled to clear off a high top (which we did not reserve; we reserved seats on the floor but we made peace with that) and squished us between two other large parties. From there, we might as well been employees because we had scoot around the little cramped space to fetch our own server and wrangle our own silverware. Our server (who was a bartender at the slammed bar) actually was attentive and we managed to get our food.

Here’s the thing though: The food was cold and clearly had been sitting in the window. I don’t blame the server — she was bartending in between all this chaos so shout out to her being the most useful employee in the room — but I blame management. Not once during this entire fiasco of trying to get a table did the manager ever approach us or make contact with us. Everyone we dealt with was an employee and for us, it felt wrong to unload our grievances on them as they were doing the best they could under the circumstances.

When we did FINALLY speak to a manager, we had to ask for her, and when we did let her know what we saw, why it was sucky that she hadn’t talked to us until we called her over, and how it made us feel to watch them avoid asking a group of older white men to move but readily ask a group of POC women to move, she was defensive and offered us a lot of lip service and excuses, then finally half-way apologized for her fumble. At best, she asked if we wanted a dessert (it was brunch time — who the hell wants a dessert right now) and told us to “give [her] an another chance to make it up” to us.

Can’t lie, not sure what I was expecting because we weren’t looking for a handout, but what we got was the most lame, yellow-bellied crap I’ve ever heard in a business establishment. AND THEN, she had the nerve to chew out her employees after we finished talking to her, as if it was their fault the place was in shambles.

In short, I don’t have much to say about the actual food because it was nothing to write home about and expensive for the mediocrity of it, but the service left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth. 0/10 would...

We just had our first visit to Social Roost and it was fantastic!

First, we arrived a bit late for our reservation due to traffic and because of a mix up they accidentally gave away our table. After apologizing profusely they asked if we would wait 10 to 15 minutes for a table to open up. Since it was our fault we were late, we were happy to wait. While we were waiting at least 5 staff members including both managers came and apologized to us for waiting which was so sweet and unnecessary.

After waiting for way less than 10 minutes we were seated which is when the magic really happened. Sitting in the restaurant you get the sense that the staff genuinely enjoy being there which makes any experience better but we won the lottery with Lily. Lily was easily one of the best waitresses we have ever had to the point that I feel uncomfortable calling her a waitress because she went so above and beyond. She was warm, welcoming, outgoing and so much fun!

After Lily walked us through the menu and offered her recommendations many of which received cheers of agreement from other staff members walking nearby we settled on the Chicken Samosas and the Curry Mussels. The mussels were great but the curry they were nestled in was honestly next level. It was perfect with the right amount of heat and just packed with herbs. I never imagined using bread to sop up curry but my husband and I were practically fighting over the three huge pieces of toasted garlic sourdough that came with it. We practically licked the dish. The samosas were equally delicious and a perfect mix between a traditional chicken filling but with a twist. The samosas are made with philo dough which made them crispy and so addicting.

For mains my husband had the Southwest Chicken Cob salad which he devoured and left nothing behind. I had the Peruvian Chicken which was insanely tender something I never knew I cared about in chicken but this made it worth it. The spice blend on my chicken was also perfect.

For dessert we shared the chocolate brownie which in all honesty was fine but not a highlight by any stretch.

I also want to call out that I felt the prices were very reasonable. We had two appetizers, two mains, a dessert, a cocktail and multiple sodas all for $130 before tip. For St. Pete and with today’s prices that felt very reasonable.

We will absolutely be back and would love to try their famous brunch. If you go for dinner ask for Lily because she is a star and will make your...