5 Seasons Brewing opens Westside restaurant
May 17th, 2009 by Cliff Bostock in Restaurants
5 Seasons Brewing has opened its third location on the Westside, at the intersection of Howell Mill Road and Marietta Street. Judging from our visit Friday night, the place is going to be a hit. Open only a week, it was packed.
And here’s a warning: It may be the noisiest restaurant I have ever visited. We were seated in the back, in a corner, so maybe that contributed to the literal echo effect. But I’m not exaggerating when I say we could not hear our server and he could not hear us, unless he squatted between us.
My favorite dish was this starter of scallops, spring peas, bacon and blood-orange vinaigrette. My least favorite was this dessert, a Coca-Cola/rum pecan tart. The pastry tasted stale and the filling was virtually flavorless except for a generic sweetness.
My honest appraisal is that you should wait a few weeks before visiting or go on a weeknight. I’ll say more in Grazing later this week.
(Photos by Cliff Bostock)
May 18th, 2009 at 11:21 am
I must say that this review is spot on. Extremely loud, food was average. Great photos though. And I can say that because I was the rude guy at the table in the background turning around to admire your setup.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
We were there on the 2nd night, so needless to say there were some pretty major glitches. They hardly had any of their wine “in” yet and the house-brewed beer wasn’t “ready”. Our server was pretty frenzied the whole night. The food was pretty good, but not of the same calibur as the Prado location. Almost everything came to us luke warm, which was a pity because it might have otherwise been pretty good. We sat on the rooftop which was really nice and perhaps not as noisy. I agree, give it a few more weeks to settle in.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
we went last night, all i can say is ….Highly disappointed! food was Blah, and a bit over priced. they still didn’t have any of there beer. server seemed like this was maybe his 1st serving job ever. his timing was really bad. i thought the space was very very cold. i wouldn’t go back.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
I went with a friend about a week after they opened. The decor was unfinished – the walls were painted red, but there was no art on the walls, nothing to absorb sound. It looked like the painters had managed to get paint all over the new booths as well. The furniture just didn’t look like it all belonged there – it was a strange mix of styles (the chairs looked like they were from grandma’s dining room), and the scale looked off since there was nothing to balance the high ceilings in the huge room.
Our server didn’t seem to know what she was doing, though she was very nice. They had no house-brewed beers. Come on, people. You can’t open a restaurant whose gimmick is home-brewed beer without the beer. When I asked about the beers they did have, she wasn’t very knowledgeable. The staff should have some basic beer training. The server shouldn’t look confused when I ask what type of lagers they have and think that’s a brand of beer. We had a pizza that was a special that night – good but greasy. The calamari came with a dipping sauce that was too cloyingly sweet to eat. The spaetzel was great. I thought the check was a little high, especially since we didn’t end up drinking any alcohol.
I think this place should have waited another week or so before opening to iron out the kinks. I’ll go back eventually to see if it has improved, but for now I can’t recommend it.