Beyond Sweet Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in St. Louis

I was hesitant to write a review but I'm only doing so to temper expectations.

1. Food was amazing! I ordered a side of collard greens as an appetizer and salmon and asparagus as an entrée. Highly recommend.

2. Service was a little cagey. We had a 2:30 reservation for two but arrived early and was seated on the mezzanine floor at 1:57. The host notified us there is a 2-hour dining experience [limit]. At 2:20, our server approached with water. By this time we'd had plenty of time to look over the menu and ordered appetizers and entrées right away. Our appetizers arrived at 2:47 along with our entrées. Yep, you heard that right. We got our appetizers and entrées at the same time. A runner brought our food to the table and we hadn't seen our server since he dropped our waters and took our orders. I asked the runner if she could have either our server or a manager come over so we can make them aware of our inconvenience. Our server came over about 5 minutes later. This was the second time we'd seen him since we arrived. I explained the situation with the appetizers but also explained that we got our meals 45 minutes into a 2 hour dining limitation. He cordially responded that the kitchen was backed up but that we still had 1h 15m to eat. I was amused at how kind he was without apologizing or even asking if our empty water glasses needed to be topped. We had one glass of water in the hour of being seated. But, our server did top our waters after we asked. I overheard the owner taking a complaint from guests at a table next to us. They'd waited so long for their food that they asked for it to be boxed up when it arrived. I waved over the owner to explain that we got our appetizers with our entrée and that we had waited over 45 minutes for food. She explained that business had been unpredictable lately but that she invested a lot of training in her servers to ensure they provided good customer service. She said she would see what she could do about the appetizers but when she left, we didnt see her again. The third time our server came was to ask if we were ready for our checks. As we were paying, we noticed that we were not comped or discounted for our inconvenience. We explained to the server the owner said she would see what she could do about the appetizer mishap. The server seemed to have no idea what we were talking about but told us he'd be right back. He returned shortly and told us the owner honored a discount. I have no idea what the discount was and took his word for it since we didn't get a paper receipt.

3. This place has potential. The aesthetics are nice. The owner seems to know her market and details are carefully consideredand planned. Acoustically, it is loud but I believe that's beyond the owner's control.

4. Will I return? Absolutely! I hope the owner sees the unpleasant reviews as opportunities to refine her establishment. I can't imagine the stress that comes with running a restaurant with all the little intricate details she's given it.

5. My recommendations: 1) On very busy days when the kitchen is backed up, offer bread or a carb-type filler for customers while they wait. Your staff do not deserve the wrath of hangry customers. 2) Remind servers to check on tables more frequent to make sure glasses are filled and customers are having a good experience. 3) If possible, consider installing a door damper on the door in the upstairs dining area to prevent the loud thud when it closes. It's quite startling. 4) When the restaurant makes obvious mistakes like bringing appetizers out with entrees after a 45 minute wait, just simply apologize and make some sort of compensation for the inconvenience and communicate what the accommodation is. Prioritizing customer satisfaction is what separate good restaurants from great ones. You'd be surprised at how a seemingly small loss for the house gains returned customers.

May your business thrive and grow! I'll be back and hopefully have an experience that will increase my...

I would like to start off by saying the day that I visited was on Valentine’s Day so I believe they were just not properly prepared for the amount of people they would be serving. This was still confusing because they made us put in our orders 2 weeks ahead of time but I am trying to be understanding. I had a reservation here at 8:30pm this past Friday for Valentine’s Day, I was all dressed up and excited to come! This was the worst experience I ever had at a restaurant! When the woman sat us she told us to be mindful because they close at 10pm. We were not the last appointment to walk in and we had already put in our orders per the reservation so I was confused on why she would say that but we moved past it. We were sat around 8:40 and received our wine and water in about 5 mins and put in our order at this time which was great. But we didn’t see any food come to our table for about 45 more mins(mind you we placed the order 2 weeks ago). On top of that we received a house salad that we did not order because they ran out of the Caesar that we originally ordered and we weren’t made aware of this until about 40 mins of us already being there.This salad was nothing but lettuce cheese and 4 drops of vinaigrette dressing. We also got the salmon which was our entree, why that would come out with the salad didn’t make sense to us at all seeing as it was a 4 course meal. The person I was with didn’t eat their salad at all and asked for it to be taken off, they said they would try. We then waited another 30 mins and had to wave down a waitress to see where the rest of our food was. They then came out with our appetizer. And ran away. atp it is around 10pm and we have not see one of the 2 sides we were supposed to get or our cake. Another table near us is also complaining. We then as ask about our sides and they run out and drop 2 vegetable sides on the table and leave, but one was supposed to be potatoes. We ask out waitress and she tells us “oh we are also out of those” so no one informed us or even asked about giving us something different. So again we asked for it to be taken off and she said she would try, then we asked for our other side and that came out asap. We were also supposed to get cheesecakes with sparklers like we saw everyone else get but because this was now 10:40 or so, so they packed it up in a to go box with no sparkler. We then were asked to pay the full amount which was $225 for the meal. We asked for them to take off for all of the problems and inconveniences. They only took off $18 and said that was all they could do because it was a package, which they again made us pic the packages. So $206 for a terrible Valentines Day dinner!! I am extremely upset and...

Went to this place because i thought it was nice an utter disaster. Firstly it took 20 minutes for any servers to even acknowledge us. I had to flag someone down to ask of anyone would be assisting us..once we were seated.

Once “Niyah” the server did introduce her self she came and took our orders and said she would bring us ice water.. fast forward 12-20 minutes later still no water.. and I had to yet again grab someone else’s attention to get ice water. Her response was “It’s only one of me” then she proceeded to ask a different server to bring us water instead and even offered to pay him $5 to do it. While instead she spent most of her time at another table that I later found out was occupied by a Instagram Reviewer.

We finally got our food, but guess what? We have no eating utensils. At this point we’ve been there for atleast 1 hour and 20 minutes.. our food sat and got cold while we waited 20-30 more minutes for utensils.

Once “Niyah” the server did introduce her self she came and took our orders and said she would bring us ice water.. fast forward 12-20 minutes later still no water.. and I had to yet again grab someone else’s attention to get ice water. Her response was “It’s only one of me” then she proceeded to ask a different server to bring us water instead and even offered to pay him $5 to do it. While instead she spent most of her time at another table that I later found out was occupied by a Instagram Reviewer.

We finally got our food, but guess what? We have no eating utensils. At this point we’ve been there for atleast 1 hour and 20 minutes..

The food was flavorful but the experience was awful. Out server refused to come back to our table, I never got my birthday celebration, and when asked to speak with the owner about our experience the Manager started pointing her fingers in my face and it almost got physical to the point the entire staff had to come intervene even then she kept trying to run towards me and attack me.

I didn't plan on leaving this review.. but once I saw that she was still employees there and wasn't even sent home for the day or anything.. I changed my mind!

Its so unfortunate because this place is cute and really has good potential however the service sucks and the staff is not friendly or...