My Experience on South Street…. I obviously wasn’t on the Sunday Side of the Street

Here is the context of the my experience: At least twice a month a small group of my girlfriends and I, like to try out a new restaurant, a new gallery opening…a new SOMETHING we haven’t attended before.This weekend we decided to do a mix of the Johnnie Walker event on the beach and Second Saturdays in Wynwood.

While getting dressed to go to House of Walker, I had the novel (though in retrospect, failed) idea of trying out South Street restaurant. As it was a Saturday night, and we were reservation-less I knew we were in for a long wait (rightfully so), but what I wasn’t prepared for was the dismissive hostess, the empty tables while we stood on the steps and the edible but uninteresting food. I can make shrimp and grits at home for the half the price, twice the portion, and quarter of the aggravation.

When I arrived, two members of my party were already there and had been waiting 40 minutes. My other friend and I should have been arriving right on time as we were told it was a 45 minute wait… we obviously were using different clocks. Twenty minutes later, we are still standing on the steps , in relatively good spirits waiting to see where we stood in the line. We are nodding our heads and tapping our toes to the music from inside. How could we not love a place playing Rufus? I even had a few “Oooh that’s my song” moments.

As my phone is surgically attached to my hand, I took a second to tweet about how our 45 minute wait

became an hour and *poof* we received an apologetic tweet and a round of shots was sent out to everyone outside. Score one for social media and responsive management. They had soothed my inner beast… for another 15-20 minutes.

Now at this point, we are starting to throw out other suggestions of where to go. In a last ditch effort to salvage the night, (for two reasons: a) It was my idea and b) I really wanted to love this place) I went to the hostess seeing that there were SEVERAL empty tables outside (two of which had been empty since I arrived). Those who know me know, I am the calmest person in most situations. I just want to resolve issues and keep the party going. I don’t understand why Stephanie just wouldn’t let my night be great. She was openly dismissive and rude, actually turning around in the middle of my question about the empty tables outside saying “That’s why it’s best to have a reservation”….. Oh ok.

This should have been my clue that Jesus didn’t want me there. As we prepared to leave, my friend Nola sent a flurry of aggravated tweets about our experience, and specifically Stephanie and *poof* the tables that were empty for at least 30 minutes were available to us. I must admit I was less excited about the response this time, because why did it take all that?

At this point I will fast forward to the food… it was ok. If I had never had shrimp and grits (and tepid grits at that), I might have been more impressed. The mac and cheese.. was just that. The fried chicken was comparable to Publix… *sigh* (Edit: Reny has advised me that the chicken was really good, so I must have a great Publix). I will say the Love Jones cocktail was refreshing… yep that’s all I got. Oh wait, they loved the cornbread-less collard greens too. Woot! Woot!

Now I’m sure you are expecting me to bash the service, but aside from Steph, we had a great experience. For it being her

first day (which she told us from the moment we sat down) our waitress, Sha Sha, was extremely pleasant and attentive. Actually all of the wait staff were wonderful. All were smiling and laughing, one told me she loved my hair (Score!) The shining moment of the whole night was when it started drizzling and Sha Sha LITERALLY ran inside to get us one of the open tables to finish our meal. She said it herself “You all had been waiting too long to be in the rain”. Yes ma’am.

With all that being said, would I go back? Maybe for a drink, maybe after they work out the kinks, maybe maybe maybe. I like to support black business (It’s cliche but true) and I want them to succeed. But when there are places like Yardbird Southern Table just across the bridge, they can’t rest on their laurels (especially when they don’t have them as yet)… no matter how many members of the Heat franchise stop by.

Sidenote: Tracy Mourning looks AMAZING every time I see her.

Ok I have been trying to get the paragraphs to look right for 10 minutes… I give up. *publishing post*