The Side by Side

At Grand Opening in 2015, best restaurant in Tuscaloosa: food, atmosphere and service. The soups were amazing! (Perhaps the management and chef changed since we visited last year– after reading these bad reviews. We haven’t gone there lately).

I was blown away at the food in here. I avoided it because I thought it was a hotel restaurant.
Well it’s not part of the hotel it’s just beside it.
The food and service were great.
Wish I had tried earlier in my stay I would have gone multiple times.

The restaurant is nice, the waitress was fine but don’t come expecting to get your food in a reasonable amount of time. We ordered our food and still waiting 1hr 20min later. Here’s hoping we see it sometime soon.
Edit: the food finally came and was very good. The restaurant manager was also very good to us as well. Maybe it was a fluke night.

We went in a couple nights ago about 10:30 pm for desserts and had a great time. Chill atmosphere, our waiter Andrew was great. We ordered three desserts but got four due to a minor confusion but hey free dessert! We had the chocolate soufflé which was good, their pumpkin mouse was amazing, the pear pear pudding was pretty good and their apple crostata was pretty good too. They have a good selection of desserts and Bigelow teas.

If I order a burger that costs $ 15 the meat should not be half the size of the bun, the fries shouldn’t be over-​cooked, and the kitchen shouldn’t take 45 minuets to cook a Medium temperature burger. The bun was so dry I almost choked, and the meat was not season at all. The only thing that added a little flavor was the «Benton’s bacon» they claim to use. This is not my first bad food experience here, so I don’t know why I continually waste my money here. I think I’ll just come to drink, but not to eat ever again. What a joke of restaurant of this «caliber». The drinks are good, yet very expensive for Tuscaloosa, but, that’s probably the only reason I continue to step foot in here because it’s certainly not the food.
Update: I came back to eat, worst Caesar salad I’ve ever had. No Caesar dressing just lemon and capers.

This upscale restaurant is located downtown Tuscaloosa. It is fairly new and opened it early 2015. Since we were staying within the hotel we opted to dine at The Side by Side. We started with drinks at the bar and decided to have dinner there as well. Max was a great bartender and quite friendly. The ice cube was a plus, the Vodka was good, the Duck was absolutely flavorless, extremely dry. I barely got that bird down. The pecan pie was a treat but that’s about it. Open floor plan, ability to watch the chefs in the kitchen cooking, manager walks the floor quite a bit. These guys are clueless about French cuisine.

The Side By Side is overrated. The food is good but expensive. For the price I would expect the food to be phenomenal, but it’s «good» at best. I had the tuna dish and it was no where close to the best tuna I’ve ever had. I will say that the bread that is served before dinner is great. All bread is made in house. The atmosphere and service is great. However, despite the great service and bread, I would recommend other places in town before The Side by Side.

Don’t let the one star fool you. I give them 0 stars. It’s really that sh*tty. Don’t waste your time here. Let me explain…
We had reservations at 1:00. It took an hour to be seated and then another 45 minutes to get served. The food was all wrong including raw chicken, really ridiculous portions (if a meal has «crab» in the title, you expect more than a half tablespoon) overcooked burgers to the point of crumbling, undressed salads… oh and I hope you like some shrimp and grits with your butter, good god almighty my heart health dropped just by looking at that plate. Can’t say enough how bad the food was and how inefficient the kitchen staff was.
It all starts and ends with the manager, bless his heart, the manager is so far out of his league, it’s not even funny. The staff is so hilariously clueless too that it’s hard to take any frustrations out on them because a good manager would find a way to rectify the problems. It didn’t seem like any of the employees knew what they’re actual duties were, they were all over the place and the hostess forgot what the definition of her title was apparently. Pretty sure she counted all the leaves on the bushes outside the window instead of helping customers. The fact of the matter is that they have a beautiful restaurant in a great location and it has SO much potential but with the crew they have in there, it’ll never succeed.
The only positives were the French fries and that our meal was comped… which is good because that entire meal was a hot sh*tty mess and not worth a dime. So again, don’t waste your time here.

Went on a Sunday evening with a party of 8. Besides us, there were maybe 10 other people in the entire restaurant. Service was incredibly slow (45 minutes for drinks and appetizers, 1 hour 15 min for dinner). A few things on the menu weren’t available, but the server didn’t seem to know that until we’d ordered. The bartender knew how to make the drinks on the menu, but no standards (martinis, manhattans, etc.) Eventually, we got our food. Dinner was fine, but overpriced. It’s the kind of place I’ll eat at if someone else pays for it, but I’d never go there on my own dime.

I really enjoyed the savory Bread pudding with Poached Egg! The bacon, wild mushrooms and asparagus added just the right touch!

Do not walk but RUN away from this place as quickly as you can, especially if you expect to be served within 2 hours of seating. We had such high expectations of this restaurant, given comments from a few others who had eaten here in the past. Had a party of four with a 9PM reservation on a Friday night. It took around 10 minutes just for our server to even show up at the table to take a drink order. «Fast» forward another 15 minutes until the bottle of wine arrived. Really? How long does it take to retrieve a bottle and bring it to the table?
Fortunately we took that opportunity to order a simple cheese platter as an appetizer, which — again — took another 15 minutes to arrive. It’s not as if they had to cook anything… there were just slices of cheese and ham.
Still, the server did not recognize that it was the appropriate time to take our order. We had to flag her down several minutes later, as it was approaching 9:45 and the kitchen would be closing soon.
That’s when the slow march to 11PM started. We waited, waited, waited, waited, and so on. We checked in periodically to inquire as to the status of our dinner, and at each point were given assurances as to its imminent arrival.
Finally we were told that it would be 10 more minutes… 15 – 20 minutes later we had enough and asked for the bill.
This is where the sheer ARROGANCE of the wait and management staff kicked in. They were incredulous that we would have the gall to ask for our bill. Seriously? Two full hours of waiting for a meal, and they could not believe that we didn’t have additional patience. The excuse given was that the food ticket had only been submitted 35 minutes earlier. I’m struggling to understand how it is our fault that our server waited over 20 minutes to even submit our meal order.
And oh by the way, my wife is a Type 1 diabetic, and she was crashing rapidly as we waited over an hour after ordering for our meal. She nearly passed out as I walked her to our hotel room to get some sustenance.
If this restaurant is in business for more than 6 months, it will be either a miracle or a crime.
I wish them nothing but ill will and a rapid but painful death.

Atmosphere was great. Very cozy. Ham hock ravioli was excellent but small. Busy on a Thursday night homecoming week so a fairly long wait for the food, but the manager compensated with a couple of glasses of wine. When the flood arrived the steak plate was one of the best I’ve had. Great flavor and verity. It was served with fired chicken skin and buttermilk gravy, turnip greens and light as air desert quality sweet potato side. The shrimp and grits were flavorful but the shrimp tasted boiled not grilled. I expected the shrimp to taste better. Overall a good experience.

Service was good. Atmosphere was nice. Food below average. Fried okra appetizer for the south was poor. New York Strip was tough and full of fat. Duck entrée was bland with very little flavor. With so many great choices in town this was a disappointment.

I went here for a bridesmaid luncheon and it was lovely. The meal was healthy, unique, and delicious. The plate presentation was beautiful. The wait staff was courteous and available but gave us our space. Wonderful experience.

Wonderful dining experience, as to be expected from a James Beard award winning chef! Cozy environment, friendly servers who are actually knowledgeable about the food and wine list, and incredible dishes. I had the pan seared Gulf catch– which was Red snapper, it was the best red snapper I had ever tasted! It was cooked perfectly! This was a great date night spot that my boyfriend and I enjoyed. We will be back!

Great restaurant! I really enjoyed my cocktail, the Chicken & Dumplings, and the Pecan Pie with Molasses Ice Cream. The atmosphere was unlike most restaurants in Tuscaloosa. It almost feels like it doesn’t belong in this city. The only drawback was our waiter was pretty negative about some of the beers in there selection including the beer local to Tuscaloosa. This was kind of a turnoff. Just thought he could have offered other beers without trashing the local beers.

I guess I’m the first to review this place. The atmosphere is great. We sat down at the bar which had many beers on draft and unique mixed drinks. I decided to try the Side by Side Burger which the bartender recommended to me. I must say it was pretty good and reasonably priced. Their seafood entrees are very popular as well. I will definitely be back to try them out.