Paul W.
Yelp
I'd normally give The Brightside 3 stars which means "OK" on Yelp, as it was worthy of 3 stars when we came here. However, it appears this bar/restaurant is perhaps blitzing Yelp with artificially inflated and possibly fake 5 star reviews which, based on my experience at this bar/restaurant, it's simply not worthy of. Most every review for this place is 5 stars, and there are another 3 pages of 5 star reviews that were hidden / marked not recommended by Yelp's algorithm - which is usually accurate in situations like this. Anyone familiar with how Yelp works, knows it'd be VERY abnormal for nearly every customer to rate a place like The Brightside with a solid 5 stars - especially when even some Michelin-star rated places in Miami don't rate nearly that high on Yelp. Something's really amiss there, and for that reason alone I'm dropping a star and only giving this place 2.
As for my experience here, 2 of us arrived, had a seat and a server was there relatively quickly. We started off with the buffalo chicken dip with chips which was good. For drinks, I had the Hang on Sloopy, while the person I was with had the Dancing Nancy. Both were good and refreshing, but neither seemed to contain much alcohol. For our meals I had the beef on weck with tater tots, while he had the burger with fries. We also both ordered mojitos. I've had a similar beef sandwich elsewhere and what I had here at The Brightside was quite good, with the usual kummelweck roll with coarse salt and caraway seeds, though the menu said it'd be served with pickles which I, at least, didn't receive. The burger and fries were good, but the burger tasted like it was made with a frozen patty. The mojitos were pretty bad, lacking sugar or syrup so they were almost bitter, and as with our first round, the mojitos contained little detectable alcohol. Our food was OK, but after 2 mixed drinks each that were either watered down or stingy pours, we decided to pay our bill and go up the street to The Gibson Room where drinks are properly served. Before we left, I went to use the restroom and saw a sign advertising fish and chips. I'd have ordered that if I knew it was available, but it wasn't listed on the menus we were given.
The buffalo chicken dip with chips was $15, burger/fries and beef sandwich/tater tots were $20 each (they come with chips; fries or tots are $2 extra). Cocktails were $14 each which would normally be about average for Miami, but what we were served weren't worth that, as they contained little discernible alcohol and the mojitos were badly made. This place has a mix of various memorabilia behind the bar and plenty of screens for showing sports and other programming, though the staff may need training on how to work them, as one of the bartenders kept trying to load things like YouTube TV and Apple TV to show on the screens, which this bar evidently doesn't subscribe to.