Piedmont Bistro

Dined Ina group of four a few weeks ago for a Saturday lunch. Busy-​we got one of two remaining tables. Drinks took 10 minutes-​water only. Serving in small cups means more steps for servers to refill. Food was ok-​we ordered a mix of sandwiches, salads, and soup. It was very difficult to hear-​tables are so close with no sound absorption materials. Watching the servers-​very hard working-​there is a lack of flow to their stations. The kitchen was busy and working as well, but food took 45 minutes. The counter was stacked to the brim with orders to be taken out. Definitely some kinks to work out. Hopefully in time to enjoy a drink in the patio in warmer weather.

I am a huge fan of Bread and Cup so therefore I had high expectations. The food was mediocre, the service was questionable and the prices are ridiculous for the amount of food. The restaurant itself has a nice atmosphere but I think they need to work on revising the menu and corresponding prices.

Everything was excellent except the noise was unbearable. after dinner drinks by the outdoor fireplace was delightful. D&I

I was uncertain about this place given the recent reviews, but we had a great experience tonight. We had the duck and the ribeye. Duck had a cherry sauce for an excellent pairing with a recommended bottle of red wine. Steak was cooked perfectly and a great cut with unique side options. Pecan pie and coffee were top notch.
We learned that after 7 pm it is 1^st come, 1^st serve. We waited at the bar for our table for 30 min or less. The restaurant has a café feel, so there is a buzz of conversation. The food is contemporary flavorful and interesting. Serving staff, excellent. Tonight they had a nice jazz trio playing.
I recommend trying it. It is a new place and think they are addressing startup hiccups. I hope Lincoln continues to support this place. It is a nice gourmet niche place and I like it. We will be back.

I really wanted to like this place. There is potential but the service was nothing short of horrendous. Walked in at 12:20 on a Sat, host was on a very long phone call with a reservation so I wasn’t acknowledged, no big deal. In the meantime, a server was leaning up against the bar looking at her cell phone and a manager (?) was behind the bar doing nothing. Finally, the kid at the desk flags him over and he seats me. Waited 10 minutes for my friend and was not greeted by a server. She arrives and 15 minutes later, we still aren’t noticed. Flag down a server who «looked into it» and he comes back and says he guesses he’ll be our server. He proceeded to forget my drink, which arrived after the appetizer (got the chick pea and apple fritters, which were good but cold). Our entrees arrive and he brings the wrong one for me; corrects it but then forgets the fries. Later, in dividing the check, he puts a charge for ½ the appetizer on my friend’s bill and a full charge on mine, rings us up for items we didn’t order but assures me they are the same price. Whatever. I saw him talking to the manager but he doesn’t even bother to come apologize… nothing. The server kept apologizing but seemed really overwhelmed. It was fairly busy, but not that busy. Food is decent, but not worth the aggravation. I may give it another chance but you’d think they would have worked out the kinks by now. Disappointing.

My wife and I stopped by the Bistro shortly after it opened. It was packed and instead of waiting we chose to eat dinner at the bar. We both ordered steaks and they arrived perfectly prepared and presented. The staff was young but eager to make our
experience great. We will definitely go back and recommend it to our friends.

Showed up at 5:15 tonight to a less than ½ full restaurant and was told there were no available tables. No word about waiting for a table to free up, just «we can’t seat you tonight.» Well guess what you won’t seat us ever. Went to Mo Mo’s and had a great meal!

Unfortunately thumbs down… Very limited menu. Only three servers on for a full house at lunch after paper write up=poor planning. Very unorganized all the way around, VERY loud, long waits for water, ordering, drinks,.everything. Prices are not bad, but burgers are dry, with the top bun being three times the size of the burger. Wait staff appears to have little to no training. Don’t bother ordering a bloody mary from the (full)? bar, as they don’t have the ingredients to make one. We won’t return.

My wife & I are so pleased a nicer, rather upscale restaurant is back in the Piedmont Shoppes-​we want the Piedmont Bistro to succeed and become our regular neighborhood hang-​out. We like the simple food concept (meats, greens & whole grains), craft cocktails & Italian wines. We also appreciate the use of local suppliers & native resources for so many things-​ranging from building materials to the food on the plate.
We gave 3 stars after our first visit because we had a nice server, were greeted & seated right away (benefit of a 5pm arrival), and for the most part enjoyed the flavor of all the different dishes we ordered. (2 entrees, 3 appetizers, a bread, 2 different wines, 1 dessert)
Our wish is that the Bistro will continue to grow & improve in the following areas:
Environment-​Less noise and a warmer, cleaner, finished feel by covering the very bare, cracked concrete floor with a textile & adding a bit of a barrier between the dining room & serve station/​kitchen. I’m hoping some simple additional décor items will be added as time passes-​at a minimum a host stand maybe?
Service-​Educate servers on ingredients & prep methods of menu items & suggested wine pairings. We had no noticeable service problems however we arrived early for dinner.
Food-​Hot entrees should come out hot or very, very warm not room temp, unless noted on menu… Was odd that our warm beet salad was warmer than our pork tenderloin :(Also, the white beans & arugula under the pork were c-c-cold-didn’t make the pork seem warm by contrast. Focaccia bread was good & artfully arranged on a HUGE plate that took over the tabletop-it’s only 2 pieces of bread, after all. There are definitely better wines to be had, ours did not elevate the food in my opinion. I would skip dessert-​the apple caramel pie was mostly crust & a very, very small serving for the price.
Price-​rather pricey, all things considered… Everything is a la carte including the 2 slices of focaccia on the HUGE plate. We don’t mind paying a bit for a good meal out-​however, we think the overall experience should equal the $$$.
We’ll go back to The Bistro again-​next time to try lunch :) We’ll see how it goes.

The whole experience was pretty disappointing. I had read the LJS review prior to going and was looking forward to quite the dining experience — we received the opposite. The staff is very friendly, except the management was not interested and uninterested in any feedback.
We only waited a couple of minutes for a table to be set up for us, as we were led to our table we walked THROUGH the expo line (where the food is set in the «window») and uncomfortably past other seated guests in the restaurant. A woman came up to us after we had been sitting for 15 – 20 minutes to give us water and explain to us our server would be with us shortly, but suggested we get something to drink — we wanted a wine and when I inquired about two on the menu she couldn’t even tell me if they were red or white. We settled on bottled beer and a martini — which was good, but not $ 9 good.
We waited another 5 – 10 minutes for our waiter to come up, without our drinks — because the bar was «backed up». We ordered immediately and continued to wait. We didn’t order an appetizer, which I regretted after waiting over an hour (after placing our order) for our meal. The food came out cold and without any of the ordered sides (which we never received) AND our food came out 15 minutes apart. At this point, I was pretty upset as we had not been checked back in on, would have appreciated another drink or two since the food wait was so long.
I asked to speak with the manager as I felt things were subpar and felt since they were new, they would appreciate the feedback and use it as constructive criticism. The manager acknowledged we wanted to speak with him, went MIA for about 15 minutes, then finally showed up at the table. He said «I hear there was some delay on the food coming out.» I explained our experience thus far, he did not offer a single apology, instead cut me off and said «we will just pay for your entrees» and walked away.
Our server was very apologetic, running around like a mad man — working very hard! However, after having worked in the food industry myself — I know it takes a lot of work to keep people happy.
Even after having been ignored and lacking drinks, we had a $ 30 bar bill.
We will not be returning and are really disappointed in not only the management, but the food.
Did I mention the noise level was too high to comfortably talk to someone across the table from myself?

I so want locally owned restaurants like this to work. Hopefully this place will work out the kinks ASAP. Piedmont Bistro is from the owners of Bread & Cup and the since closed Jack & June. Hmmm?
It was way too much for the staff & owners to handle on a busy Saturday night. Especially right after a write up in the paper. The service and food suffered for that reason. Good food and presentation but it wasn’t good enough to outshine the hiccups in our experience. Once we ordered our drinks it took over 30 minutes to get them. Part of our order didn’t get put in. Some food we ordered never came out. By this time we are 2 hours into our dining experience without much attention to our table. We ran out of water. Never ordered more drinks or even had the chance. Plates weren’t cleared from appetizers and salads. We would have loved to get coffee and dessert but we just wanted to get out of there at this point.
I agree 100% with an earlier Unilocal reviewer, Carol W, «This restaurant needs basics brought back into play with owners greeting and desiring input from diners.» Amen to that!!! And the bar menu needs a bit more explaination. They are trying to stick with an «era» for the bar menu. I get it now but the bar menu should be explained to patrons as soon as they sit down if they plan on ordering a drink. An overview or run down would add to the uniqueness and ambiance, I assume the Piedmont Bistro so desires.

We so wanted this new restaurant to live up to its hype but we were very disappointed. Arriving on a Friday nite at 5:30 with reservations, we were shown to our table immediately. We were surprised how many were seated and actually had a hard time meandering around the tables before coming to our 2-​seated table. They would benefit from having a dedicated aisle around the room.
Our server greeted us and took our cocktail and appetizer order. After 35 minutes the appetizer arrived and after 45 minutes the cocktails arrived. We were disappointed the limited bar did not have our popular whiskey (Seagrams) but went with the suggested and it was adequate — $ 7/​drink. We did place our dinner order when we ordered the appetizer and we were again disappointed it took 65 minutes to arrive. I ordered flank steak and the presentation was simple AND steak was warm. Not hot, warm. My better half ordered New York steak, medium rare and it arrived medium well and also warm. At no time did anyone approach our table to check on our order.
This restaurant needs basics brought back into play with owners greeting and desiring input from diners. We spent $ 80 on 4 cocktails and 2 steaks. Way too much for a loud and crowded restaurant.

Went for the first time with friends and family. What a treat! I have looking forward to the opening since first announced band was not disappointed! The menu is abbreviated, but that’s OK. I had the special which was a duck confit. It was excellent! Others had the flank steak and the pork loin. Raves all around!
Wine list is also short, but appropriate for a bistro I think. Same for beer list. Mixed drinks look very good, maybe next time!
Service was good, Page did a good job with our party of five.
Go here and eat! I know I will be back!

This place has some kinks to work out.
We ordered the sweet potato and red pepper hummus. The concept sounded weird, but I love me some hummus. As it turns out, it was weird. The texture was whipped as opposed to that lovely, gritty, oily, lemony hummus texture one is used to. Also, do you know the lemon «frosting» on top of, for example, Little Debbie lemon cakes? It tasted like that was folded into the hummus. Worst of all, the focaccia was old and tough. The good news is that it came out right away.
The entrees? They did not come right away. We ordered the pork and flank steak. When they finally arrived, they were cold! We ate them anyway because: a) they actually tasted good despite being cold (would obviously have been better hot) and b) our waitress was MIA until we were totally finished. The next time we saw her, she said, «Finished?» She didn’t even ask how the meal was.
We waffled between 2 and 3 stars, but ultimately landed on 3 because the service was friendly, although largely absent, and the food would have been fantastic if it was hot.

The menu is small (only eight entrées), but had enough variety to satisfy everyone in our party. Each of us found our meats (pork loin, duck, steak) perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection. The vegetable sides were creative and effectively complimented the entrée, but each could stand in their own. Everyone’s plates were shiny clean as we savored every bite!
The Camembert appetizer from Branched Oak is delicious! (Well done, Krista!)
Very good cocktails and excellent wine list.
This will be one of the stand-​out restaurants in Lincoln. It’s already my favorite!

From the owners of Bread and Cup!
Ate here on opening night with a large group. The food was excellent. I had the duck and it was very tasty. My friends raved about the pork tenderloin and the flank steak as well.
The service was good, especially considering opening night. We ended up being in a hurry to leave to get to a movie and the staff was exceptionally accommodating and cashed us out on the fly on our way out the door.
The owner checked in with us and chatted for awhile which is always nice.
The cocktails were amazing. I’m not a huge martini fan but I sipped on my friend’s martini and it was very good.
Overall it was a small menu but everybody’s food was amazing. It’s a great addition to this area of town.