Sweet O Wine and Chocolate Lounge

Back when this place was open, I’ve been to Sweet-​o twice.
The atmosphere at Sweet-​o was very nice. It seemed like a perfect place to take your date. Each time I went with my guy friend, we ordered the sparkling white wine, a panini, and some sort of dessert. Although the price was kind of high [you can go to Cheesecake Factory!], it was okay. It was a good place to go if you just want to relax.

closed!

I just really, really didn’t like this place.
We were at Yardhouse for their happy hour and I had been eyeballing «O» for nearly a year, so I asked the girls if they’d like to head over there for dessert. They agreed.
First of all, this place is cute and cozy. Settings are perfect for a first (or third) date, or girls night. We settled into a booth and perused the menu.
Our waitress was very friendly, chatted with us for a bit (we were the lone table during our entire visit) and brought out samples. I settled on a German Pinot and one of the girlfriends enjoyed a sparkling white that could have rotted my teeth out it was so sweet! The Pinot was not bad but not worth the moolah. At all.
We ordered the dark chocolate fondue sans bananas. I was looking forward to sweets as we were already a bit tipsy and I always get a ravenous sweet tooth after a martini or seven. The fondue came, presented decently. But it was very very blah and did not mesh well with my wine (maybe she could have recommended something better, but I decided to stick with what I knew after being overwhelmed by the menu and the samples). It was so blah that I ate my fruit and don’t really even notice LOL (but the apples did have a weird pesto aftertaste-​odd! But not bad).
For two glasses of wine and the fondue the total came to $ 55. I can go get blah chocolate and odd wine for much cheaper in a variety of places. I will not return… I was expecting more choice as far as the chocolate went… just… blah.
But it IS cute and the waitress was lovely, so two stars for them. We did bring a youngun’ with us and she was quite friendly with her, so I don’t think anyone would have issue bringing a kiddo along on off peak hours.

All the wine (by glass) taste the same because they’ve been sitting out for days. I am not much for chocolate or sweets so I’ll save a star for those who do. They do offer some of the best Spanish wines by the bottle, however, and may be worth a trip to grab some rare vintage. So skip the food, skip the wine and ask what’s new from Spain /​Portugal (unless you really enjoy a warm glass of vinegar.)

Agree with the other negative reviews about this place. The food is overpriced, the ambience is not inviting, and the service could definitely use improvement.
You can read a more detailed review here:

Just a fun place for wine and chocolate! We had the dark chocolate fondue and I was licking the bowl lol how fancy is that! The wine flutes are good I recommend the Italian! Overall its a little fun date night snack. Food is a lil over priced but come on chocolate! Cant go wrong!

This is a great place if you love a good chocolate fondue. I have been to Sweet O a couple of times and it is one of the most amazing dates I have eaten in a while. I have dinner there twice, and the paninis are light, which is nice, but not as tastey as I’d like. Maybe I am a panini snob. The place is super cute, and the service has been good the couple of times I have been there.
If it was me, I’d go just for dessert. Yum!

Last night, I decide to venture over to the west side for the first time since moving here at the beginning of September to visit Sweet O with a group of friends. I wanted to like this place… I really did. But to me it fell a bit flat.
I was the first to arrive in my group, about ten minutes to six. I walked in and the only people in the restaurant were the staff members. I don’t know how many people work in the back, but there were 7 staff members just sitting around out front. Awesome. I decided to sit at the bar and wait for my party to arrive. Both male bartenders were really attentive and fighting to serve me. Slow down boys, apparently you missed the wedding ring on my finger. I tried the German Riesling flight which was really good. The pours were a little meagers though. I enjoyed all three selections, but the third was definitely my favorite because it was really smooth and not sweet at all (unfortunately the name escapes me now). The best part… they only charged me $ 14 instead of the $ 16 that was printed in the menu.
The place is really small, so conversation with my friends was really easy. I think the whole three hours we were there, the restaurant only got half full at most. Our waitress was very nice and didn’t rush us at all. A friend and I shared the cheese plate… not quite what I was expecting. The blue cheese/​brie mixture was disgusting. The cheddar was good, but it’s cheddar. I can buy that at Fry’s. The third cheese, whose name I do not know, was good. I didn’t like that the bread was really hard. And not french bread hard… just hard. I had the tomato, mozzarella and pesto panini which was just OK. I love pesto, but this was not the best pesto I have ever had.
Unfortunately I did not try any chocolate because I don’t like chocolate. Crazy I know. My dining companions did try some of the desserts. The one that seemed like the winner was the raspberry cheesecake which two friends had and really liked.
While there was nothing terribly wrong with the place, it didn’t impress me enough to drive the 30 minutes to Glendale from Tempe anytime in the near future.

I’m really struggling with this review. I wanted to really like this place, the concept is great, but in reality it just fell short.
On a Friday night the place was practically empty. It could have been the rain I guess but rain should never stop anyone! Because it was empty conversation was easy and service was fairly attentive. The atmosphere was similar to Cheuvront… huge windows, lots of light. I don’t think this would really make a good date place, however. I would picture a chocolate and wine date in a dark place with plush couches you and sit on and have intimate conversation. Sweet O just has tables and booths. Nothing comfy and plush or intimate about it.
The wine selection is great, I will give them that. Kudos for having more than one Pinot Grigio on the menu. They have many flights to choose from and I went with the Italian Immigrants which was good. (Although the pours in the flight were pretty meager. The glass of wine that accompanied a friend’s dessert, on the other hand, was a very generous pour.) I wasn’t terribly excited about the wines in the flight however, as they were all pretty similar in taste. (Except for the one in the middle which had a mild smell of cheese.) I ordered a champagne to have with dessert and it was so sweet I made a face, even though I ordered from the «dry» champagne list. (I hate sweet champagne.)
The food was just ok. The paninis were nothing to write home about, I’ve had much better paninis in many other places. I chose the Margarita panini, mozzarella, tomato and pesto, which was standard. (And btw, it should really be Margherita, shouldn’t it? As in like an Italian pizza? Not like a tequila infused Mexican drink?) The cheese plate that my friend and I shared was laughable. Did you really put cheddar cheese on a cheese plate? Like Cracker Barrel cheddar cheese? For real? The brie was awful and I can’t remember what the other kind was, probably because the waitress herself didn’t really explain it very well. Definitely not like the (complimentary) cheese plate at Cheuvront. My panini had some serious garlic in it so if you are going with a date bring some mints with you.
So I guess the point of the place isn’t paninis or cheese. (But you would expect that at any wine café…) Its chocolate and dessert! On my drive there I had been envisioning dessert so good that my husband I would make special trips out there on a night with no plans just to drink wine, eat dessert and stare blissfully into each other’s eyes. Well… I fully admit that I’m not a chocolate person but the non chocolate offerings were meager and my choice in coconut cake with passion fruit filling was more like passion fruit cake. The chocolate offerings all seemed intensely rich (which was confirmed by other members of my party) and the chocolate flights, while looking yummy, are really meant for one. So don’t think you can share them easily as I watched two girls in my party try to split them up to share with interesting results.
There was a point during the night when feeling a little nauseous at the table. I think it may have been the insanely sweet champagne but I thought I was going to lose my dinner all over the place. I didn’t feel quite «right» again until after I had gotten home and sipped some tea on my couch.
I really wanted to love this place… but I just can’t justify going out to Glendale just for it. If the food and dessert had been good I totally could have. But for a good wine selection there are a lot of other places closer to home that I would choose. And its not really the type of place you’ll go to before a sporting event. «Lets go have some chocolate and wine and then go and watch the Cardinals kick some ass!»

Sweet «O» is more like Sweet «NO».
Was intruiged by their website and good reviews, went on a wednesday afternoon around 430. We were the ONLY table. We ordered a two drinks, two sandwiches, and one dessert to share. The drinks were good, and the food had a lot of potential (although one sandwich was better than the other…) until I found a pretty gross hair embedded in the middle of my sandwich, mid-​bite. Now, anyone who’s worked food service can respect the occasional mistake. Sure, you cant control when your hair falls out. But what is getting the bad review from me is how BADLY the staff handled it.
Upon notifying the waitress, she unapologetically stated «Well I have no idea how that could have possibly gotten in there»… Almost as if I placed it there. It was short, black, and still had skin connected to it. I don’t have short black hair. So she took it away. She then asked if I would like something else, to which I asked if it were possible to make another half sandwich. She came out with a completely different sandwich than I ordered (which of course was the one I didn’t care for). So I gave up on trying to get any more dinner and we focused on dessert. It was decent, but nothing I couldn’tve gotten at applebee’s on happy hour.
Then came the bill. Not a single thing had been comped, and it reached $ 60 dollars. When my friend complained, the waitress hastily said «I’ll get the manager». Manager comes bustling out, sets a new bill on the table, and walks off.
I understand mistakes in food. I truely do. But the way this staff handled a mistake that was completely their own was ridiculous. Never ONCE in the evening did we get an «I’m sorry» from any staff member.
I won’t be going back there again. And by the attitues they exhibited, It didn’t appear as if they cared that I told anyone else not to go there either.
2÷19÷08 EDIT: The owner has contacted me, apologized, and shared that there is new management. Might be worth another try.

Sweet O’s is located in the new «Westgate» shopping area next to the new football stadium. I’m usually merciless in my ridiculing everything about anything Glendale because of a very strongly pro-​Glendale (Cards fan) friend of mine. But Sweet O’s is really something that stands out from the crowd.
I probably had the most amazing salad of my entire life here. I didn’t even know it was possible to enjoy a salad this much. Smoked salmon with fresh strawberries on a bed of greens. The strawberries came slliced, and were all fresh and very sweet. My friend had a «tower» of grilled zucchini (or was it eggplant?) and mozzarella, and she was equally impressed. She likened the mozzarella in terms of quality to the hand-​made stuff made at Bianco’s.
The chocolate selection is fun. There are over 150 choices of of wine. The atmosphere and décor are very cool and up-​scale. The price point of some of the entrees is a bit high, which led to this place being close to empty during lunchtime even as every other restaurant in Westgate was packed because of the Cardinals-​Texans game starting at 1:15. But when you see the presentation of their dishes and then taste them, you’ll see that you get what you pay for.

This place is amazing! This would be the perfect date spot– intimate and romantic– but, instead, I came with my friend. Oh well. We still had a great time. We came hungry, and left stuffed and oh so happy!
Sweet O Wine and Chocolate Lounge is family owned and operated, and it’s the best place I’ve been in awhile. The food is really good, and they don’t just have desserts! They have a list of tasty panini’s on the menu, and I got the olive and mozzarella one, while my friend opted for the roasted vegetable. Both were delicious. They come with a nice little green salad too.
We had a nice red wine with our dinner too– although I can’t remember the name of it. Choosing what to have for dessert was soooo hard though. They have chocolates, truffles, caramels, cakes and all sorts of tempting pastries. This place is what dreams are made of!
Oh wait! I forgot– they also have dessert panini’s that looked amazing too. We chose to get the assorted mini pastries. They were like tiny bits of heaven in our mouths! They also have assorted mini petit fours and fondues. Mark my words– I will be back!