Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement — Restaurant in San Francisco

My wife, her sister and I went there a couple of Saturdays ago after attending a graduation ceremony in Golden Gate Park. The place was scheduled to close within the hour of arrival. The place was empty.

As we made our way in, a person appeared behind the bar and beckoned us to come to the bar to order. I noticed the menu was abbreviated for lunch and the only entrée was fried chicken. We ordered our food and served ourselves some water and sat wherever we pleased. I was surprised but not offended by the self served aspect instead of table service but this is their model.

My sister-in-law and I pretty much ordered the same meal: 2 piece fried chicken combo with 1 side and a piece of cornbread. She had sweet potatoes as he side. I added collard greens and mac and cheese to the sweet potatoes as well. I also added the creme brulee banana pudding for dessert. My wife had the lunch special which was a 2 piece combo with a piece of cornbread and french fries.

The fried chicken was excellently cooked, crisp, well seasoned without being salty and not oily at all. The sweet potatoes were not candied as advertised and as I was hoping, but again, excellently seasoned. It seemed as if they used canned sweet potatoes, not fresh and seasoned them.The collard greens were lightly seasoned but cooked perfectly, tender but not mushy and it still had some texture. The french fries, again, cooked perfectly, crisp and not oily. The mac and cheese was surprisingly good. The noodles were overcooked and a little dry but extremely flavorful. We all had a piece of fried chicken left and parts of the sides but once my wife tasted the mac & cheese, I had to get another order to go for her. The cornbread was so so. It had a rather dark appearance instead of yellow or white and you didn't get much corn flavor. We took the banana pudding home. Unfortunately, the brulee didn't hold up and melted. I don't know if it was like that at the restaurant or not as I didn't check. In any case, it was way too sweet for our taste. The bill was over $120 for the three of us and includes one soda.

Service, overall was really good. Ordering at the bar and serving yourself water was a bit odd but all of the staff were very friendly and attentive.

Although the restaurant was empty when we arrived a couple of tables filled up before we left. However, there was a constant stream of takeout orders leaving the restaurant while we were there. Seemed as soon as one person left with their food, another came in to pick up their order.

In conclusion, Minnie Bells was one of two other Soul Food restaurants that I felt was very, very good in over 30 years. Although the food was very tasty, it suffered slightly by the chicken not being freshly fried and the mac and cheese being held to temperature and that dried it out and although the chicken wasn't dry, it wasn't juicy either.

We would...

Came here for dinner with the wife and kid on a Saturday evening. Super friendly guy at the door directed us to the hostess, who then handed us off to our server. We were seated at the communal table, given menus promptly and served our waters. We took a few minutes to decide what we wanted to order, however our server unfortunately then informed us that there had been a mistake and that a party of four who had arrived after us should have been seated first. Our server was super apologetic but asked us to vacate our seats and wait 20 minutes for another seat to open up. The communal table had seven open seats, and could have accommodated all of us there. However, our server was told to inform us that the party of four had priority seating choice as well. As we were getting up from our seats, some man with a Giants jersey rushed out at us from the back and continuously "shoo'd" us out with the word, "Bye!" He then commanded our server to clear our waters and menus immediately as if just the hint of us disgusted him. Shocked by his sudden aggressiveness, attitude and animosity, we had no choice but to leave the premises. Even the gentleman at the door was super apologetic and attempted to get the GM involved. However, at that time, we were out the door already and did not have any intention of ever dining there again as long as Giants jersey man still works there. My family has been in the food service industry since before I was born. I grew up waiting tables. Mix ups happen all the time at restaurants. This was a small mix up. Any hostess/host worth his or her salt could have dealt with this situation half asleep. What this Giants jersey guy did, was pour gasoline on a small spark. His actions perfectly sum up what not to do, and then some. In any case, to the owners and everyone else here, wish we could have tried your food. Looked good! But Giants jersey man took it upon himself to make mortal...

10/10 in my book! And I hate to admit that I'm a picky girl. I'm a foodie. Servers are super friendly, vibes are nice with pleasant music in the background that's not too loud. And the food was delicious!

We got: Mango Habanero wings (one of their specials of the day) The wings were juicy and the sauce was amazing! Pretty sure they blended actual mango because the mango taste was there. I like spice, so I would say the sauce wasn't spicy at all, and the mango was the more dominant flavor. But it was really good :)

4 piece chicken meal with Mac and cheese and potato salad as our sides. The Mac and cheese was nice and cheesy. It gave classic Mac and cheese. I also think they broil the Mac and cheese with a layer of cheese on the top and then mix it into the Mac and cheese after, because I was getting bits of broiled cheese even on the deeper layers of the cup. Which was great. The potato salad had perfect seasoning and was also just really yummy. The chicken pieces were decently sized and I could taste the hint of rosemary on them. Very crunchy.

We also ordered a side of hot honey sauce, which we added to the chicken and the cornbread (as recommend by our server) and I did enjoy it! I did think it paired better with the cornbread. The cornbread was also yummy and crumbly. I personally like my cornbread a bit more moist, but the flavor was really nice, and the hot honey helped give it some of that moisture!

Overall, I would 100% come here again! Thinking of bringing some friends to try...