Southern-Comfort Restaurant & Lounge

Three  colleagues and I were in the area for work and stopped into SoCo, for lunch, based on its historically stellar Yelp reviews (and my recommendation based on the notion that we should try something none of us have been to yet).

What in the wide-wide-world-of-sports is the Yelp community thinking on this one?!

Walking in the door (after parking in the dirt lot out front), your feet immediately start sticking to what I hope is just spilled and un-cleaned beer residue... while you search for a table in the dark.  Finally, you settle on the nicest seats in the house... which are wood-top, metal framed, long, narrow, fold-up picnic tables that are just barely less sticky than the floor... and sit down uncomfortably low in plastic chairs you won't even want to look at for fear you might just want to stand and eat.

Eventually, we were greeted by a waitress - a seemingly kind-hearted older gal with a slow walk and a southern drawl - who I questioned about the draft beer selection.  She had to look over at the bar to refresh her memory because they have a massive selection that includes Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light, Yuengling, and... yeah that's it...  Still hoping for something potable, I asked what they have in bottles... and literally tried not to laugh at the response, which was, "Oh, we have just about everything!  Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Miller, Pabst Blue Ribbon..."  As she trailed off at the end... I was hoping she was going to add to the list... but nope... that was all she could think of in stock.  I guess we'll just agree to disagree on the definition of "everything."

I went with sweet tea... and everyone else followed suit with regular iced teas.

After the teas arrived two-at-a-time (three or four is apparently too many to carry at once. and they must not have any sort of trays to put anything on.), I started us off by ordering a chili cheeseburger with fries.  The next guy ordered a patty melt, but changed to a cheeseburger when the response was, "I'll have to go back and check and make sure we still have those."  Still have those?  You know a patty melt is just a burger with a particular kind of cheese and served on rye bread (usually with onions), right?  Unless you just have no rye bread, there's no way you can make burgers and not patty melts...  Anyway, the poor guy just didn't want to  deal with it... and the next guy also went for a burger (but with no lettuce and chili cheese fries).   It was the last guy who was brave enough to try their breakfast-served-all-day and ordered sausage, scrambled eggs, and toast - bravo, sir!

The food arrived... and it was hard not to just immediately begin making fun of my terrible choice for lunch.

The fries are definitely from a bag and, our burgers are all haphazardly slapped together and tossed on our plates and, of course, there's no silverware, ketchup, napkins, etc... until we ask for it all.  It was just cheap ol' bar food that looked like it belonged on a paper plate in someone's last minute backyard barbeque, ya know?  Of course she also forgot the guy's chili cheese fries... but the real winner was the breakfast... that was two tiny pieces of previously frozen sausage patties smashed down to millimeters thin, two pieces of slightly burnt toast from the smallest loaf on the planet, and eggs that looked almost white (leading us to believe it's likely a pre-made egg wash with WAY too much milk and not enough actual eggs).

The burgers, we all agreed, were just okay... and at least filling... but our poor pal didn't even bother touching the eggs.  No doubt he remained hungry.

We actually never saw our waitress again... and had to ask the bartender for our tabs.  When we paid with plastic... we were told the minimum charge was 10 bucks, regardless of the 7-dollar-and-change totals.  Laughable. but about on par for this dingy dive at this point... so we just resign ourselves to slightly over-tipping for the service we received, throw our 10 bucks on the cards, and walk out... me already getting regularly ribbed for my phenomenal taste in dining establishments, of course...

The ONLY reason this place gets anything more than just the ONE star it probably really deserves was the music.  They have a fairly modern juke box near a dance floor... and someone has some pretty good taste in 70s through 90s country and rock music.  Sad when the only redeeming quality about an entire location is the music... so I'm 100 percent certain none of us will ever be back again.

Where else are you going to meet a guy named Spider, who just happened to be in Janis Joplin's band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. As well as George Jones, well maybe not the George Jones you may be thinking of but hell, the owner's name is George freaking Jones. What other kind of cred do you need to be the best dive honky-tonk bar in Atlanta.

The first time I visited here, I ended up singing "Jackson" with a legit cowboy from Wyoming named Tommy. His stetson was majestic. And yea, there are some older very drunk gentlemen who hit on you but it's a small annoyance compared to the awesomeness of this place.

I was really impressed with how warm and inviting the staff are, George spent a lot of time chatting with us, telling us all about the history and the various movies that Soco has been showcased in. He even had a song that he had written about his son that he asked us to read and get our opinion about. One waitress in particular actually drove us to my apartment when our cab never showed up! That's right, drove us home. And didn't ask for any money, but we gave her a hefty tip of course, man I still can't believe she actually drove us home. If that isn't customer service I don't know what is.

I like the random things they sell sometimes like decorative flags or roses. The last time I went they were selling roses and some nice gentlemen bought us some beautiful white roses.

The karaoke singing is some of the best Atlanta has to offer, they have more songs than anyplace I've ever engaged in karaoke. I love the mix of people this place attracts, east Atlanta crowd mixed with hardcore loyal locals who've been going there for years. I saw two people wearing the same Toby Keith shirt one night.

I give this place mad props for its authenticity, friendliest staff ever, and never running out of song choices. I LOVE SOCO!

I felt like I had walked back in time to Micky Gilley's place in Urban Cowboy. I went on a Sunday night, spur of the moment. The staff kept telling me the place didn't pick up until after 11:30, man was I surprised when half of Little 5 showed up. Some great singers. They have karaoke Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I'll be back.