98 South

I recently got an update from a local Unilocaler that this joint just closed. I think it had something to do with a late rent payment dispute with the landlord. Stay tuned…

Closed… landlord locked the doors.

Scale of 1 – 10 (multiple visits):
8 Food
9 Service
9 Atmosphere
5 Value
The décor is visibly priced into the menu.

Received two more messages from «Iolanda» this morning. Thought some of you might get a kick out of reading them. I’m definitely never going back to 98 South. Hope this info helps some of you… BTW, don’t you just love orangeheads? Doling out insults are so much easier when hiding behind a mask!
19 minutes ago: Obviously rebuttal is not your friend but jealously is your neighbor…
9 minutes ago: Thought the drink was for your gentleman friend but your the one that had to abandoned it… You really shouldn’t have your picture posted… pug!!! I mean easy target… Lets go west side… yeppie!!!

This place is GREAT!
Talk about a divine menu and vino list.
Their scallops are superb, and their cheese tray — that includes a local honey — is top-​notch.
The only thing that would make this place beyond stellar, is a few additions of comfy chairs and high-​back lounge seats. It would take this place from restaurant to chic lounge.

Wife and I went for lunch one Sunday. We used to go to the old place for happy hour all the time. Our food was good and well priced. My hamburger was pretty awesome and decadent. –1 star for the awful french fries which were limp and too thick. O/​W I’m glad they are back and will return for more later.

It appears that they have closed their doors for good! Check their website for more details.
Over the winter and spring I found myself here quite a bit. My friend was the general manager up until fairly recently so I’d try to come frequently. The atmosphere, food and drinks were always enjoyable. The food was always fantastic, even if a bit overpriced. They had good happy-​hour appetizers and always poured a stiff martini! It’s a shame to see it has closed its doors, because like someone else stated, Chandler needs more independent businesses.
It was always packed, especially on weekends. At times you couldn’t even find one seat open. The décor and live jazz made it feel like you were somewhere other than Chandler, Arizona and the staff was always extremely friendly.

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I’ve been to both 98 south and their sister restaurant 56 east. Gotta say that I like 56 east A LOT better even though they have almost identical menus. The fish and burgers were overcooked here. The prices seemed a little heftier. The service was spotty.
The kicker was that my posse and I went during happy hour and were seated in the main dining area. After ordering, the waitress let us know that we couldn’t have happy hour pricing on our food because we were seated in the main dining room! And she knew that we were there for happy hour because we had told her as we were walking to the table. I have to say, what a great way to milk customers for a larger tip!

I loved 98 South. My lovely gf took me there for a much needed date night. We had the calamari appetizer with a plum dipping sauce. AWESOME. She had a pasta dish with sausage, very good and spicy. I ordered the seafood pasta dish, it was awesome, filled with mussels, shrimp, fish and lovely mild lemon butter sauce.
I disagree that its overpriced. Its not cheap that’s for damn sure, but you get what you pay for here! Quality food, fresh and the portions are just right, not teeny tiny and not huge and disgusting.
Only complaint is the noise level, its way too loud, they need something to absorb all the loud people in there!
We had a great time, too bad all that delicious food didnt stay down… we drank a whole bottle of wine that night… and me and wine dont really mix! sorry if thats TMI!
Anyway, if you have a special occasion, try it. They have shuttle service, and I also hear their happy hour is awesome.

Had a nice time at this wine bar and restaurant. The place is definitely hip inside. The food we ordered was excellent (especially the yummy, interesting appetizers!), and happy hour prices are awesome. I highly recommend the skirt steak app and the crab/​shrimp cake app.
But I’m with the last reviewer. Their food is WAY overpriced. We stuck with the happy-​hour priced appetizers because the regular menu starts around $ 18 for an entrée! That is insane. Not only that, I’m not a wine expert, but I’d think that a place that is a ‘wine bar’ would have more ‘by the glass’ choices. Their one pinot was definitely not my fave. I switched to their house cab after my first glass.
Cool place, good choice for happy hour, but yowza, be prepared to drop some cash if you stay for dinner.

It is a good place with a cool vibe and great jazz bands on Saturday. The food is also pretty awesome too. Why 3 stars? SO OVERPRICED. It is the snottsdale of Chandler. «Oh let me park my Suv with the child seat in back and go inside and look cool while I drink $ 15 dollar martinis and scream over the loud jazz band.»

Definitely a pricer place to get dinner, but the food is excellent. I noted too based on the menu that they have on their website they have dropped their prices and have added some cheaper items to the menu (pulled pork sandwich, fish and chips).
We got the calamari appetizer. The plum/​cilantro dipping sauce was great… a little sweet, but not too sweet, the calamari fried nicely… not overdone and chewy.
I got the tenderloin, which was $ 28 and is one of the items that has seen a price drop. It was grilled to my specifications — medium rare. I liked the sauce that came on it, the asparagus and potatoes that were sides.
My sister’s chicken breast was tasty and my brother in-​law liked his pork chop. Hubbie thought the fish and chips was fine, but on the pricey side.
Bro in-​law and sis split the crème brûlée for dessert and loved it.

I love this place… for happy hour, otherwise you might want to transfer some money from your savings account. The inside atmosphere is nice jazzy/​loungy, my French Martini is gone in 60 seconds the food is pretty good. I wish they’d do something nicer with the patio though, it’s pretty blah compared to the interior and has very bright lights above it at night.
I took my boyfriend there for his birthday and we used the free shuttle service, which comes and picks you and your party up and drops you off at home for free. Be sure to tip Chris well, he’s a nice guy and he gets you home without a DUI (ooh, that should be his motto).
My bf loves the Black Pearl martini, I stick to the French, but for 11 bucks, I’d like to see a little more in my glass. We started with some crab cakes, which were pretty good, nothing spectacular. He got the seafood pasta, which WAS spectacular, that sauce was delicious, just wish it came with some bread or something to sop up the remainder. (a pasta dish with no bread? mama mia!) I had the butter lettuce salad, asked for the dressing on the side, didnt come that way unfortunately, it was too much dressing for me. But I’m still alive.
Dessert was another martini, esspresso, and the jazz band played the happy birthday tune for my boyfriend, aww sweet.

Hey, hey Chandler, what the F? Why didn’t someone inform the rest of us that you had a cool little thing going on?
As per usual in cases like these, we were bat-​signaled to the nethers of the East-​Valley to meet up with my gf’s family for a night out on the town. I was expecting Applebee’s-east, set in a beautifully stucco’d historical building circa last century Lowe’s vintage 1999. Glad I was wrong. Oh. So. Wrong.
Instead, we ambled over to 98 South (set in a historical 1912 bldg) after learning of El Zocalo’s hour-​and-​a-​half wait. No worries. This joint had pretty much everything we needed (except one, more on that later).
So the six of us sat down immediately and were presented with a pretty nice wine list. Nothing extraordinary (kind of surprising), but they did have a Spanish Crianza, which I found pretty nice. This was a default choice, however, after they (gasp!) ran out of Oak Creek Pale Ale. This should be an immediate soap-​in-​the-​sock-​flogging-​penalty for any 98 South waiter of choice for cock-​teasing patrons after said keg has floated. Again, no worries, the Crianza was good enough to have ordered a second glass, and who am I to deny myself quaffable libations?
I ordered the Pinwheel, which despite its goofy name, is a serious meal! Its 4 rounds of skirt steak (seasoning made classified for patrons, obvs) on a pillow of garlic mashed and sauteed spinach. Fucking num num!
The others around the table appeared to enjoy their meals as well, evidenced my several «Mmm“s and a couple «you’ve gotta try this“es — and you know how hard it can be to please the home-​cooking-​for-​life-​crew in which older-​generation family members have lifetime memberships. My gf had the salmon and after my requisite ‘boyfriend’ sample, i was highly impressed.
The ambiance was pretty cool — lounge-​y and comfortable. They had a lounge singer doing some raucous covers of Van Morrison and even Coldplay. Slightly weird, especially the dudes attempt at a Chris Martin falsetto, but I appreciated the effort and all-​in-​all he didn’t take himself too seriously. This made it actually pretty fun to listen to.
Overall, pretty freakin cool experience, especially with deflated expectations of our long-​lost-​cousin, Chandler. But boy can he throw one hell of a dinner party!

Located near the Historic San Marcos Country Club in Downtown Chandler, this very laid back, yet fun and funky wine bar is great!
I was only there for a late afternoon lunch and enjoyed some great prices on wine by the glass and some half priced appetizers including skirt steak and calamari. Our server was very friendly and the place was very comfortable. We sat in the back on the couch and used the coffee table. There was no live entertainment and where we were sitting I could imagine the music easily overpowering the ambiance as this place is not that big and there were alot of instruments! The Little strip mall has some other shops to check out.
4 stars for service, prices and atmosphere.

I met Kristin S. at 98 South last night for drinks and appetizers. What a cute little place! I don’t venture down to Chandler too often, but I will in the future for 98 South. The inside is really nice and modern. I’m a sucker for dimly lit restaurants. I arrived before Kristin, so I got the only seat left at the bar and ordered a drink while I waited. The bartenders were very friendly and not pushy at all. Once Kristin arrived, we got a table in the main dining room area. Even though I didn’t do it, I like how you can create your own wine flight.
We had the cheese plate which was a nice size for $ 11. We got french bread, apples, olives, and 5 cheeses. All 5 cheeses were delicious… I think it’s the first cheese plate I have ordered out here in the Valley where I loved every cheese. There is usually one cheese that I don’t like, but not here. Normally, I’m not a fan of cheddar cheese on cheese plates, but the German cheddar on the 98 South cheese plate was really good and didn’t taste like conventional cheddar. I also tried the crabcake appetizer for $ 10. On the plate was two crabcakes… unfortunately they were not that good. I don’t like crispy breading on my crabcakes and I hate filler!!! There was no lump crabmeat in these crabcakes and they were very dry and bland. The breading and filler was about 95% of the crabcakes with what I guess I could call crabmeat making up the other 5%. I may be being generous with that crabmeat percentage in fact.
I liked 98 South, even though the crabcakes are gross and the wine selection was a tad lacking. I will still go back and try other stuff on the menu as the overall menu looked pretty good.

I met up with Prissy C. here before the Tumbleweed lighting and I really enjoyed myself. I wish it wasn’t in Chandler! (In all honesty though, it didn’t take us long to get there from N. Scottsdale… about 35 minutes.) The atmosphere is great, its a nice modern bar with a large dining room. On the website it looks like its just a bar area but there is in fact a large dining area as well.
The wine selection is a little lacking so its more of a restaurant than wine bar I think. There are only three wine flights, none of which interested me, and a large martini list. (The number of martinis they have is probably equivalent to the number of wines they offer) However, I did enjoy the sauvignon blanc that I ordered. Their website also advertises that they have drink and app specials on Saturdays until 6:30, however there were no specials offered when we went.
However, the food is very good. We were pleasantly surprised by the calamari… we’re very picky when it comes to calamari. I usually don’t go for the big rings of it but these were very tender and the sauce they were served in was very very good. I chose the bow tie pasta which was well cooked and the chicken in it was bountiful. My husband’s pork chop was delicious and he was quite satisfied with his choice. We opted to not have dessert but the marzipan cheesecake sounded divine. I think the prices are right on par with what you would pay for a similar entrée in a similar environment in any city. (Our app, 2 beers, 3 glasses of wine and 2 entrees came to just under $ 100 which is totally reasonable, IMO.)

This is a very tasty and classy restaurant. The food had great presentation and tasted great as well. With wine the bill was over $ 100 for the two of us, but we do feel that it was well spent. The gnocchi was to die for, yummy!

I’ve lived near downtown Chandler for over 6 years now. One of the better kept secrets is how Arizona Avenue between Chandler Blvd and Frye has been revitalized. There are several restaurants that offer great atmosphere, a comfortable dining experience and a wide variety of wines and cocktails. 98 South is no exception. If you like a casual happy hour with a great choice of wines and martinis, give them a try. If you like beer, they have a good selection including Stella Artois (of which I’m a recent convert to!) Try a couple of their appetizers and share with whoever you go with. I’m a big fan of the warm almond crusted brie plate and the skirt steak starters. The staff at the bar are friendly and extremely helpful when you need a recommendation for wine or food.