Andrew Blair’s

Let me start by saying I’ve only been to Andrew Blair’s once in my life, and the one time I was there was at 11pm on a Saturday night. So needless to say, I am not qualified to comment on the food — lunch or dinner, nor the waitress service.
Though I had heard lots about Andrew Blair’s (AB) from friends that live in the area, I still really didn’t know what to expect when I walked in. It has a very open, almost warehouse feel to it. There were few to no tables to be seen. In addition, seating was limited, though there was a bunch of chairs lined up against the wall, to the left as you enter. But I guess that’s all by design — they don’t want you sitting there, lounging. I feel like management wants you to be up, moving around, dancing, mingling and of course — drinking.
CLUB you say? Hardly. Its closer to a high-​school dance atmosphere than anything else — and not that any thing’s wrong with that. There were def. plenty of well dressed, beautiful, friendly young adults everywhere. People, both men and women, seemed more than willing to mix it up on the dance floor, a la the mid-​90s television show on MTV — The Grind.
Drinks were reasonable. Not cheap by any means, but not excessive either.
There is a quaint outdoor patio scene, but beware, its mostly for the tobacco-​friendly crowd.
I like AB’s, its just that it feels a little callow. I feel ABs’s is taylor-​made for anyone that has just graduated from college. Me on the other hand, I prefer more of a mature bar experience (like Whisky Warehouse) than a club one. I prolly won’t be back anytime soon to get my club-​on, but I just might give the lunch or brunch a shot if I’m in the area.

Time went: 9:15pm (yea, I’m new, didn’t know. it would be dead)
Place: To dance and get your drinks on. Two stalls for the women’s restroom — what?!
Service: Awesome! Our bartender, Jenna is kewl! Bouncers did not give me a hard time, easy going.
I came here with my hubby and friends and had a great start to the night. Just relaxing at the bar, ordered drinks. Our bartender was attentive. After many rounds of drinks, went bar/​scene hopping, and eventually came back to dance. Overall, it was good enough for me to want to come back.
Wishes: More bathroom stalls and just oomph the look of the venue a bit more…

A moment while I toughen up to write this review.
…
I came with a few new friends I made in the Charlotte area and was immediately scrambling for the exit, emotionally, upon entering this establishment. Collared shirts, khakis, side-​parts EVERYWHERE. It was like the frat party that never ended, really a tribute to all collegiate brotherhoods. I thought I had left that all behind!
Had I not continuously been handed drinks throughout the evening I may have been able to made my escape. but given the circumstances. I began to dance. And once I start dancing, and once people start to encouraging… It was all over.
Maybe if I come during the day, AB and I can reconcile our differences.

SHOTS!

Never had their food, but I am only rating on the bar experience. Went their and people were all dressed up like (im talking suit and tie) on a friday night. This is montford, now Im in decent get up, but come on. The atmosphere was ok and the drinks were overpriced. For montford aread I would rather hit up Angry ales, Duckworths, or Brazwells.

I ate Sunday Brunch here. The have chicken and waffles which is a big selling point to my friends, but none of them ordered it.
I had the healthy option and it was well portioned and healthy. The grits were bland. I’m not sure if that is because it was the healthy option or they just have bland grits.
They are fairly empty until close to 1 pm on Sundays. If you get there at noon you will have your pick of tables.

I really would like to eat here and try the food, but this night it was all about the bar, and it was great — the two bar maids were hot and they milked us for all our tip money with very strongly poured drinks ;-)

AB has always only been a nightclub/​bar for me. It seems to change over from the restaurant setup to a club fairly quickly in the evenings.
Atmosphere — dark, social hall-​esque, spacious, one bar area, loud to very loud to too loud (…am I right or old?), Wide variety of music. Mostly stuff with words… so…not a true dance club enviroment.
Drinks — The priciest of Montford… IMOHP. A cap & coke is $ 7…at least there was no cover. Still, not as good as the Brazwells bartender… I mean mixologist.
Service — Bartenders and Door people are nice. Guy at the door said I am aging well… thanks???
Overall — I have a decent time here. Though, the sound guy/​DJ plays the music, at least the treble, too high. Is early tone deafness a benefit to going out? I am going with a no on that one.

This is our local «Cheers», and we’ve never had a bad experience! The staff is wonderful, very friendly at all times and always willing to make suggestions. The chef is always trying new dishes, and would be happy to make some adjustments to a dish if you request it. My husband loves the lamb sliders and the ribs, I love the salads, mussels, and salmon, among everything else. We’ll always come back!

Sadly I do not have much «dining» experience at the ABs. Somehow this street has become more of a nightlife destination for me. With that said, I was here for «happy hour» (hours? haha) yesterday with my girl friends. Wednesdays are half price wine night. They have a good selection of wine by the glass that’s beyond the Cab and the Chardonnay. In fact they carry alot of Italian reds that I have never tried before until last night. My friend swore by the Syrah ($ 10 a glass before half off). My Chenin Blanc & Tempranillo were both good, not too acidy.
At the bar they have a «Grazing» menu, anywhere from a dip to a full plate of pork goodness. I ended up sharing the Litchfield Chicken Sandwich. It was good, the chicken was juicy and seasoned well, which melted cheese and avocado. It comes with fries. Have to say the portion wasn’t big.
I enjoyed this visit much more so than the Friday night madness I have experienced before. We had the bar to ourselves, the bartender was attentive but not all in our face. I highly recommend it for happy hour. Not so much on weekend nights… unless you want to be a sardine, wait forever to move let alone use the bathroom or get a drink, and you think Bieber combover is HOT… then this may be your spot.

I have never gone to Andrew blairs to eat. I have only been for drinks and everytime it has been great. There has always been a good crowd. Good music, stiff drinks at a decent price and everyone was having a good time. They also have a great staff

I left a little of myself at ABs on NYE… not in a good way. I’ve really never been inside ABs other than this occasion, but it was a good set up… the open bar concept was a bad combination for me as I barely made it to midnight and then was in not so good a shape the next day… until 5pm.
Thanks ABs for a good time… hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself too much, but I guess we have all been there (that’s what I keep telling myself).

My husband and I tried this for the first time recently after hearing it advertised on Matt and Ramona. We were reluctant because sooooo often you can plop down $ 100 for a nice dinner and be disappointed. But they had a Groupon so we decided to try it.
The atmosphere is nice, a tad stuff for the menu but not overly so. Our waiter was very knowledgable about the menu and wines but got us going on the martini specials none the less.
We had the goat cheese appetizer which was A MAZE ING and my husband had the ribs and I had the lamb. I out-​ordered him this time, the lamb and nochi was wonderful but his ribs were a tad on the dry side. The wine and beer pairings suggested were perfect. Great service and food.

Wow, what a disappointment. I’d been curious about this place for awhile and decided to take a friend there for a birthday dinner. It was a weeknight and the place was packed – but few were dining. The outside patio had the drawing card of a live musician, inside, part of it was sectioned with a curtain which appeared to be some kind of business event going on and the other folks were the after work crowd still hanging out and drinking. Now I see why no one was eating. As a starter, we decided on the shrimp and avocado spring rolls (plural on the menu) which actually was one springroll cut in half – pretty cheesy. The menu was very standard fare – pork chop, meat loaf, steak, tuna, ect. without even any interesting preparations. Without going into detail, our entrees were very so so. For dessert their warm brownie with coffee ice cream and chocolate sauce was sans sauce and the brownie not even warm but extremely dry and crumbly.
As for service, our server informed us that she would be tailed with another server who was in training and between the two of them, we still had very poor service.
This is one place that I’ll not give a second try!

I felt like I need to provide a current Andrew Blair’s review because a lot of these are outdated. Gone are the days of the packed house, dress code and club scene. They’ve attempted to rebrand with a new countrified logo and feel. I am personally not a fan of the new AB logo with the wheat behind it but I appreciate their effort to have a more «comfortable» neighborhood feel. I saw several people in tshirts, shorts, jeans and sunglasses. Maybe it was the NRA in town but I even spotted some decidedly «red» folks. So maybe it is like a country club, but in Gastonia. :)
Their décor hasn’t changed, so it still feels like a nice place, but definitely softer and more comfortable than say a Liberty gastropub. Opt for outdoor seating if the weather cooperates. Even on a hot night the fans keep the air moving and it was nice. They had a sangria special– it tastes fine enough but lacks the fun fruit you can munch on like at Sole, so I’d skip it for their nice wines.
We had the meatloaf with mac and cheese and green beans. I really enjoyed the green beans– they were cooked perfectly and still retained a little snap to them. The meatloaf was also very nice. We also had the filet mignon. They had one misfire on temperature, but their make good efforts were overwhelming– best I’ve seen of any restaurant. The remake of the steak was cooked perfectly, they replated it with new sides. The manager was very concerned about our happiness and took a lot of time talking with us. She also invited us to their new brunch on Sundays. They apparently have a crème brûlée french toast that looks divine. I wonder if it can compare with 131 Main’s granola french toast?
But I digress. The portions were not large enough for my hungry man so we ordered a side of mushrooms which were nicely seasoned with shallots and scallions.
We were offered two chocolate bourbon truffles at the end of the night which were lovely– not too sweet, and solid texture. We opted out of dessert (a shock to both of us, I know).
I would like to go back for their Pinot Thursdays where they do Pinot Noir tastings on the 3^rd Thursday of every month.
Final tip: Citipass coupon book has a buy one get one free. So all in our meal cost $ 40 including a generous tip. So given that, the value was great.

I’ve been here twice… first time I would give it a ⁵⁄₅. went with a group of 5 of us and sat outside. amazing food from appetizers all the way to dessert. true standouts were the pimento bread fried things, the carpetbagger, and the peanut butter bread pudding. amazing meal.
second time I went here I would rate it a 1.5÷2. food was only okay, carpetbagger was still good, but the dessert (peanut butter bread pudding) was horrible — it was rubbery and dry — so we sent it back. they brought out a second one and it was more of the same… just more microwaved. I was actually a bit offended that they would send out another piece just the same. manager came out and said he took it off the check… didnt look like he cared too much. very disappointing.
they’ve got one more shot, IMO, before I write them off for good.

This is going to be a crazy review because I had the best wedge salad I have ever had in any restaurant at Andrew Blair’s. It had heirloom tomatoes and candid pecans. Simply delicious. But, you knew the But was coming. When we walked in it smelled like cleaning solution, it gave me a headache. Everything else about the restaurant was average. That was a year ago, I had a fine time that night, our food was fine, but I have never for any reason wanted to step foot back in that restaurant. Now that I talk about it, I would want a wedge salad to go. Man, I told you this reveiw was going to be crazy.

SO, a group of about 25 of us went to AB last night for restaurant week. I have realized that I just need to stop going out to these «Restaurant Week» events. All of the restaurants serve the same ol’ tired «molten chocolate cake» as a dessert choice. Now, that might have been creative in NYC ten years ago, but now it has been done to death (and not usually all that well). Get some new ideas, folks.
That aside, the food here was pretty good, with high quality ingredients, and the flavors really came through. Nothing creative going on here, and though there were some opportunities for that, they were missed. Example: I ordered a basil-​lemon martini. I don’t really care for lemon, but the basil component was interesting. THe very nice bartender made it for me promptly, but it didn’t taste at all like basil. She said, «Yah, our muddler’s broken. We had like five, all made from glass, and they kept breaking.» Seriously? How much can a metal one cost? The most appalling part of the evening is when dinner was brought out, they gave my dinner to my dim-​witted co-​diner, who cut into it, said «this isn’t mine,» and then they picked it up and put it in front of me. HELLO!?! At this point I could hardly say, «I’m not eating a USED steak,» because that would be an insult to the girl sitting next to me, so I had to eat it. (And it was pretty good! Cooked exactly mediu-​rare!) Still, could you have worse service? Oh yes, because again with dessert, I was the only one out 25 not served, and then they just brought out random desserts, flinging them at people, because «so-​and-​so lost the ticket.» OK, 1: Never admit something like that. It’s unprofessional, and 2: never sell out a colleague like that, re: see above. Bad form all around.
The food had enough potential to have me try it again, but this time definitely on a quiet Tuesday night!

Checked out this place on the first night of Charlotte Restaurant Week, and MAN, what a mistake. Actually, the real mistake was this restaurant’s management thinking it was a good idea to have an event with 200+ guests while Restaurant Week is going on.
We had 9PM reservations, then were sat closer to 9:30PM. The bar area was packed with people, very much like a club, and the ratio of men to women was 9:1.
Dinner was fine, although I wouldn’t say it was great. They serve cornbread and these interesting little pimento hushpuppies. The pimentos don’t really add anything more than color, and it’s a bit like eating funnel cake without the powdered sugar. Can’t comment on the cornbread since they ran out of that.
Mike was going to get the Goat Cheese Croquettes as one of his small plates, but they were out of them. He did, however, get the Smoked Beef Brisket, which we both thought was hella good. The remaining small plate items were all okay. We were amused, however, by the fact that they initially brought us two crab cakes, instead of one crab cake and one soup.
Just like our small plates, our entrees were taking forEVER to arrive. Our server was apologetic, which was nice, but seriously — what was taking so long? Reservations were for 9PM, and it’s 10:40PM and our entrees are nowhere to be found. Finally, they arrived — Mike’s pork tenderloin was so raw that he was forced to send it back.
Dessert was the biggest fiasco. I was due a Chocolate Molten Cake, and Mike was due a Pistachio Milkshake. First, it was the cake that they ran out of, so my server said she’d bring me the Candied Pecan Ice Cream. Then she came back and said they were out of ice cream, so she’d bring me a piece of cake that’s on their regular menu. Then she said that they were «running out for ice cream» and we’d get Pistachio shake and the ice cream after all.
But then it finally came, and what we ended with was a dried out piece of chocolate cake and a chocolate milkshake. And the mikshake? Imagine you accidentally left a pint of chocolate ice cream out on the counter, only find it about two hours later, but you’re still jonesing for chocolate, so you decide to pour about a cup’s worth into a glass? Yeah, that’s what we had. There was nothing shake about that.
All in all, this experience was a direct result of poor management. I’m sure the food is normally delicious, but Mike and I will never know because we won’t return after this debacle.

Went to Andrew Blair’s for first time after reading review in Creative Loafing and passing by the location a few times. The location is on an old «restaurant row» section of town that’s getting a lot of new attention lately — with Andrew Blair’s being one of the first «higher end» establishments to root there. The building is upscale for the area. The interior had a nice layout and the tables are spread nicely so you don’t feel too crowded. The bar area is large and has room to spill over into the waiting area.
The night I went (a Thursday) it was not crowded. The service was excellent and our waiter was very professional and was clearly proud of the restaurant and was eager to promote it. They have a nice Martini menu that included the best version I’ve had of the latest southern trend — Sweet Tea Martini. They also offer win flights — 3 half pours of different wines and then a full pour of your favorite from the lot for just $ 15.
Menu-​wise they offer some nice individual and table appetizers. We had the mussels and they were terrific — nice garlic cream sauce with diced chives, julienned carrots, peppers and tomatoes) and plenty of bread to sop the broth. I was in a carnivorous mood and had the wedge salad (which included plenty of bacon and blue cheese but also some sweet balsamic walnut clusters) followed by a filet special with mushroom ravioli and grilled broccolini. My girlfriend had a fantastic ahi tuna off the menu that included an asian salad and sweet sticky rice. We were stuffed and passed on dessert.
Overall we had a great experience: very good service & excellent food, nice environment. We look forward to going back.