Black Drum Brewing — Restaurant in South Carolina

This is a beautiful atmosphere on the waterfront, with stunning views of the ocean and immediately adjacent to the Embassy Suites. Service is reasonably good. The staff are friendly and the speed of service was pretty reasonable, but the food left a bit to be desired. The descriptions are intriguing and the flavor combinations sound enticing, but the execution misses on several fronts.

I was really looking forward to some fresh oysters, especially being on the beach, so I ordered the charbroiled oysters. I recognize that I have high expectations when it comes to charbroiled oysters because I've had the absolute best --- Dragos in New Orleans. So I did adjust my expectations in advance, but these were so underwhelming. Some of them were plump and juicy, but many were small and shriveled, but the biggest issue was the complete lack of flavor. They were extremely bland. Perhaps, I would have been better off just selecting raw oysters on the half shell.

The pork rinds and pimento cheese were decent. The pimento cheese had a pretty good taste, but many of the pork rinds were inedible because they were overcooked. Those that weren't overcooked were very tasty, especially hot out the grease.

Sadly, there was no ribeye option on the menu, as that's always my preferred selection, but I do enjoy a good strip steak, if cooked well. This one wasn't. It wasn't very tender for a medium temperature and had very little flavor. The potatoes were overcooked and dry with little flavor also. The best component of my meal was the broccolini and blistered tomatoes.

I also ordered the dessert pretzel, which was coated in cinnamon sugar, with a buttery dipping sauce. It's very good when hot but cools off quickly, and then is just ok.

This was my second time visiting this restaurant. I had visited a year prior with a so-so experience, but wanted to give it another chance, ordering completely different dishes, especially because of the convenience to the hotel and beauty of the venue. Previously, I tried the smoked seafood dip, which was so smokey, it was bitter and I couldn't handle the taste. The smoked chicken wings were fair, as was the pizza.

Bottom line, I really wanted to like this place, but the food flavor is seriously lacking, especially in a town with a lot of great...

The only reason I gave this place 2 stars and not 1, is because our server was friendly and communicated well and the manager was trying. I made a reservation online for 6 + a high chair. So, 7 total people. We arrive for our reservation to be told we have to wait 15-20 mins unless we want to be seated outside. It’s 100+ heat index today and my kids are already worn out. I asked how long the wait is with no reservation and they said ‘oh, no wait. But since you want to sit inside you have to wait.’ We waited (though I still don’t understand why our table wasn’t ready for us), and while waiting we noticed there were many 4 tops. While they were round, they could still have been pushed together right? After about 20 mins they seat us in a corner booth. While being sat, they say "oh, we don't have any high chairs right now." Um, ok? They said they only have 4 in the whole place. They said they would ask the manager. So we wait with my 18 month old, who is trying to crawl over everything, for another 15 mins and no one comes to tell us anything. My husband walked to Embassy next door to borrow a high chair from the breakfast room. Meanwhile, 4+ staff are standing at the hostess stand laughing and chatting. Moving on, we now have the high chair, all kids are happy. Waitress comes and she’s friendly and lets us know food is coming out slow tonight but she will keep us updated on our order. Great! Manager does offer to comp an appetizer for our issues so far. Great! We got the hush puppies. They were good! Nothing special. Our food comes out pretty fast. I start pulling apart my son’s chicken tenders to cool them off and they are frozen! We send them back and are told we will get a new order and have them taken off the bill. All other food was just ok but not worth the price. This wasn’t the worst dining experience I’ve ever had but it definitely feels like this place has no clue how to function. It’s not little kid friendly and that’s sad because there is a water park literally right outside. We won’t be back. This is clearly a place owned by some big corporation and they have little hands on involvement. Sad to see this “exciting” new restaurant is a flop for our family who visits Kingston every year and we have for the...

Where to begin. When seated, the waiter (Tony) took 10 minutes to greet us because he was too busy having conversations with other customers and other staff member. We started off by ordering drinks, which were subpar at best.

We then ordered some extremely overpriced food. The food came cold and definitely did not live up to the 70 dollar price tag that came along with it.

After we finished our extremely mediocre and disappointing meals, I payed for the meal in cash, only to discover that our waiter tried to charge us for a drink he forgot to charge previous patrons for. When confronted regarding the price discrepancy, the waiter (Tony) tried to convince me that I did in fact order the extra drink we were charged for. After a slight back and forth, he refunded me 14 dollars instead of the 15 dollars we were overcharged.

We then left the restaurant and preceded to walk around the embassy hotel next door, only to be approached and harassed by our waiter who had left the restaurant to return the tip because it apparently was not what he was expecting for his terrible customer service. After being approached, we went to leave and the waiter turned back around and preceded to try to follow us aggressively. My girlfriend was terrified and I was shocked. I would never expect a server from any restaurant to follow customers out into another establishment and harass and threaten them, especially a server from a resort in which we own property.

The manager Nikki was shocked that this had happened and was very helpful with refunding our meal and handling the situation. This situation was very disappointing and uncalled for. I would not expect that level of service and harassment from a waiter at any establishment, let alone an establishment connected to Hilton properties. I would never suggest anyone dines at Black Drum Brewing ever if you care for good food and/or...