Meadow Neighborhood Eatery + Bar — Restaurant in Texas

This place has great food and the servers are good, but the hosting staff borders on snobby and they consistently say you need a reservation despite the restaurant being more than half empty. I’ve had brunch here at least 6 times in the last few months and brought new folks in each time, but I am questioning returning given my most recent experience.

The food is excellent: great flavors and quality ingredients (farm to table). The servers are great—no complaints there. But the last few times I’ve been there they have acted like you can’t possibly sit down to eat without a reservation despite more than half the tables in the restaurant being visibly empty. One of the times they took my number and said we’ll text you when we have something, then they texted like 15 min later, we came back, ate and I never saw the restaurant fill up. Today I called ahead to make a reservation/ask about wait time and when I asked how long the wait would be if I just walked in (after hearing the earliest reservation) the host very rudely said “ma’am, the earliest available is 11:45,” repeating the earliest available reservation. I was not being pushy when I asked what the wait time would be, as that is a normal question to ask of a restaurant—most restaurants have reservations but also obviously accept walk-ins and accommodate you as able (I’ll note I was asking for a table for 2, not a large group).

Like I said the food is good and the place is nice enough (although the shopping center it is in is quite dilapidated), but it is not nice enough to be reservation-only. I hope management wakes up to this fact because there are a lot of other good options in San Antonio and turning folks away is not...

The place is super charming..

I unfortunately sat next to the kitchen… which wasn’t the problem at first until they kept slamming utensils and plates over and over again inside bins and baskets next to our table.

I ordered the blackened fish. The meal wasn’t pleasant by no means. The beans you used over powered the dish. You used a ham broth. It lack of taste, but it did not blend well at all with the fish and vegetables they used. The meal will be better suited without the beans since the beans are heavy and take over the meal. Instead of the ham broth use coconut milk with the fish and the vegetables with a bit of salt and pepper cooked in foil wrapped up in the oven. It will give it a more exotic taste and feel. If the customers want more heat add red pepper flakes. You miss the mark on this meal.

Also, we dined with a friend that doesn’t eat meat. You need to notify the patrons if there are meat byproducts in the food served. Your sweet corn balls has a side jelly of sorts that has meat byproduct. She was extremely disturbed that she ate meat. Please add to your menu to clearly state the sources that are used to make a dish.

The succotash that was added on the side with the fried chicken was awful. I can clearly taste that you used the ends of the vegetable stems. It tasted like pure grass. You need to add more cider vinegar and sugar to get rid of that rancid...

Great brunch. Very loud space. We were a 3 top that they seated in a small room with a 12 top. We couldn't converse with each other because it was too loud. Nothing has been done in the dining room to lessen the noice. Food was good. Presentation was lacking. For example, expect to get a plate purposely platedbut with no intent to make the food more visually appealing. Purpose and function period. So the food appears on the plate as if it was plated on a compartmentalized cafeteria plate. Meat here, veggie here, sauce here...plate by numbers. Food is good. Freshly and craftfully made. Good. Room to grow, but worthy of a repeat visit. Fully satisfied but still hoping that next visit knocks it out of the park. We had steak and eggs, correctly prepared. Tough meat though. State street biscuit sandwich. Too big to eat as served so to will have to disassemble the sandwich in order to eat it. And, the brisket and eggs with tortilla. The potatoes were delivered 5 mins later because they needed to be made. Hmm. Timing is everything in this industry. Brisket was tender and smoky although linear in flavor. The dish was made better with the salsa. Ok enough, but not ready for a reorder or encore performance. Solid wine selection. No mimosa option for brunch. Service was excellent. Belle was amazing. Great...