Review: B-Side

I awoke this morning to a text message from Amanda that read “do you wanna do breakfast or brunch?” Naturally at 8:00 a.m. the answer to that is “yes”, because I was hungry. And for some reason the first place that popped in my mind to go was the B-Side. I’ve never been, and have wanted to check it out since it opened early this year. B-side is located on Rodney Parham Rd across from Franke’s in the Market Place Shopping Center in the old Lily’s Dim Sum Then Some party room…so that would imply that they are owned by the owner of that establishment…and if you needed more proof that they share owners, all doubt is erased when you have to walk into the dim sum restaurant to use the restroom. But I digress, the restaurant itself is small and quaint. It is about the size of a…I don’t know…restaurant party room. The walls are lined with art by local artists. If you happen to fall in love with one of the pictures, you’re in luck! You can buy whatever you see. Each picture comes with a price tag, a nice hefty price tag. Our table was positioned under a $900 painting.
But again, I digress, the food. The menu is 2 pages…front and back…and includes the basic breakfast foods—pancakes, eggs, etc.; and some not so basic breakfast foods like beignets (which I sort of wished I would have tried). Aside from juice and coffee, they have a mini menu of hot teas and general brunch drinks like mimosas, Bloody Marys, screwdrivers and a bunch of other drinks that include vodka or champagne that I’ve never heard of. Breakfast foods are sort of tricky for me because I have an intolerance to eggs, and of course people always pair everything with eggs. So I usually have to order breakfast foods a la carte. Today was no different. I ordered the waffle ($5.99 for one gigantic plate size waffle divided into 4 triangles) and bacon ($2.99 for four slices). The waffle was okay—I personally thought it would have been GREAT with strawberries, whipped cream and a dusting of powdered sugar—I’m jus sayin’. My bacon was cooked perfectly.


Amanda got the eggs benedict (about $8.00) and coffee. Her dish came with these really delicious home fries that were sprinkled with sea salt and basil(?). We weren’t really sure if it was basil, but that’s what it looked like—whatever it was, it was good.



Service was excellent. Our server was Justin. He was very accommodating. Another server (I didn’t catch his name), kept coming to our table and chatting with us. He was very nice, and entertaining. I was even more impressed when 15 minutes to closing time, a couple came in and Justin was just as welcoming as he was earlier in the day. Whereas, in some restaurants, if you come in 15 minutes before closing they treat you as if you are inconveniencing them in some way. So, I was very impressed.

Overall, B-side gets an appropriate “B” for food (not because it was bad, it just wasn't amaaaaazing) and an “A” for service. I’d recommend it to try. But beware that the hours are a little different. They are open from 8-2 pm Wednesdays-Sundays only.