Mezz Bistro Lounge

I was referred to this place by a buddy of mine who has been a regular for a long while. I was stoked to find out about the hidden booze upstairs at my local theater. I took the wife upstairs at Paragon for the first time and was amazed at the decor and effort put into the ambiance up there. The bar area has a backsplash of windows and is quite unique. The seating in the bar area is nice with dim lights and plenty of room to move around.We sat at the bar and ordered the recommended Mezz Mac pizza (which tastes like a Big Mac in pizza form. A must try). We also got into some artichoke dip. The pizza was magical as you just don't expect that taste in that form. You can see and taste the effort that goes into its creation so you know they are serious about putting this iconic burger onto some flatbread. The artichoke dip itself was good. What we were given to dip into the sauce was not our favorite. Tortilla chips. Bleh. Hey, they were multi-colored though so it was fun to look at. I would really like to see them switch to a pita bread (toasted or warmed). We try artichoke dip everywhere and we just cannot choke (get it?) down this dip anywhere on tortilla chips.The rest of the menu items ranged from basic to interesting. The food menu is quite small but there is definitely something for everyone.There is a wide variety of specialty drinks, beers and wines to order and this is where Mezz shines. Although it may be hard to get a server/bartender's attention at times and customer lines do build up, it is still worth it. We loved being able to sit around and have a drink before and after the movie. We also were ecstatic to bring our drinks into the theater with us. We will now not see any movies elsewhere or any other way. I need a snack and drink from Mezz and a cushy, oversized VIP leather seat in the theater.

What a disaster!We had a living social voucher for dinner and a movie. We arrived at the theater to find all the ticket stands were closed. We wandered around not knowing where to go, and eventually headed upstairs to the bar area. There was no hostess or waiter, just a guy working the bar. The bartender explained we had a limited selection of appetizers to choose from, so we picked the Bruschetta. It was.... interesting. Not traditional Bruschetta at all. The bread seemed like it was a day old. Not crisp and toasted anymore - although it might have been at one point. Just sort of firm and soggy at the same time. It wasn't bad. It definitely was very gorgonzola infused. Very sauce heavy. I thought it was ok though. We also got two glasses of wine - the house chardonnay. It was not a very good wine, it was headache inducingly sharp. Definitely the cheap stuff. The better half gave me her glass and ordered a drink from the bar instead - a Victoria's Secret. The bartender had to make it by looking at the recipe on the drink card. It didn't turn out very well. It hard a sharp sour raspberry taste - like raspberry pucker with sort of a nutty taste as well.The voucher included 2 medium sodas and 2 popcorns. They sent a kid to go fetch the popcorn and he only returned with one. We had to send him back for the second one. The sodas also didn't come in the big movie cups (you know how big a "medium" is at the theatres right???). Instead the bartender just poured them in regular glass tumblers. He said he'd check on us later to see if we needed refills (which we most certainly would - they are like 8oz glasses with half of it being ice). He never did come back in to the theater to check on us though, and we really didn't want to have to leave the theater and walk back to the bar for a refill, missing parts of the movie.(I'll review the movie theater and seating on the actual theater page - this is just for the restaurant)We returned to have our entrees after the film. We sat down at 6:52. I know this precisely, because I returned a call I had received while in the movie and I have the timestamp on my phone. Let me also point out that there were never more than 5 tables of people at any given time, and there was 1 waitress working along with a couple errand boys and the bartender. The waitress never came and greeted us, and I had to go fetch menus myself from the empty hostess stand. She took forever to come take our order. When she arrived, she apologized for the wait and took our order. I had the tenderloin and the better half had the walleye. We also decided to try two more drinks off their specialty menu. I had an "O-Poppy" and she had a "Love Pink".The drinks took 20 minutes to arrive (we were timing by this point - as the better half moonlights as a server occasionally). The O-Poppy was terrible, and the ice had already mostly melted in it. It was supposed to be absinthe mixed with orange. It was colored orange alright, but all you could taste was black licorice. There were no other flavors present. She sort of liked her Love Pink, but said it wasn't very good. We resorted to going back to our sodas.The food took ONE HOUR. I repeat ONE HOUR to come out. With only 4 other tables present. We had our food arrive at 7:55. Her walleye was cold, and she had asked for tartar sauce but was told the restaurant doesn't offer tartar sauce. My tenderloin was actually quite good. It was cooked perfectly and the rub they used was very flavorful. It didn't have any sides though. Just like 2 spoonfuls of burned carrot slices and some weird purple potato thing (like half the size of a cigar). I don't know what kind of vegetable that was.We asked our server to bring out our desert right away as well. We ordered "monkey bread". The menu was not descriptive at all as to what it was. They really should just have called it cini-mini's. It's exactly the same thing as the cinamon roll bites at McDonalds. After waiting 20 minutes for our desert, and being unable to flag down the waitress (she was chatting with a bus boy), I left the table and walked up to her to remind her to go fetch our desert. She apologized again for forgetting and went and immediately returned with it. We asked for our check at the same time.She came back another 10 minutes later (we were now right around TWO HOURS since the movie ended and we sat down in the restaurant) and said she would comp the whole thing because of the slow service. That was nice of her to do, and we appreciated that they acknowledged that they screwed up, but man what a terrible dining experience!!!! Two hours of sitting around for 1 drink each, 1 entree each, and a cinnamon roll. Incredible! Just incredible. Since they let us keep the living social voucher and asked us to try them again and give them a second chance, I guess we will. I mean it's free after all so why not. I'll post an updated review after that, but things are not looking good for The Mezz so far!!!!

This isn't really a restaurant anymore- it hasn't been one for a couple of years. It is basically a bar that also serves a handful of low quality food items like individual pizza's and mozzarella sticks. It's ok in a pinch, if you are starving before a movie. I do like that you can bring your drinks/food into the theater.

This place follows the recent fad of bars in movie theaters. I like this fad, and really like this theater. The bar is upstairs and separated from the theater, so you can choose to just go get a drink and not feel obligated to see a movie. However, given the prices and the atmosphere I don't know why you would....There are only about five seating areas separate from the bar..and the bartenders are wayyy over involved. I ordered a sangria and a "Jeffrey". The jeffrey was sapphire gin, coriander, thyme, lemon juice and soda water. In theory it sounded awesome, but for some reason it tasted like pickle juice. Each drink was over $9.00! This was a fine place to maybe grab a beer before a movie, but I can't imagine spending the amount of money you'd need to at this place. I'd rather go to a pub before hitting the movies, and get three drinks for the price of one at this place.

The menu is excellent. Had nearly everything on the menu and 75% i would recommend. Mac and cheese, asian burger, charcuterie board, and pork sliders are some of my favorites. Portions are a bit small and a couple times havent had a perfect meal but nine times out of ten its a great time.

An interesting, up scale bar & restaurant with an interesting extra. You can have drinks with dinner our snacks AND watch a movie at the same time. The food is great, the drinks are wine, beer and chicktales (they have some good ones.)

Some people complain about the prices here. I don't find it a problem, seeing as I go about once a month or once every other month as a special occasion. It is nice to be able to drink while enjoying a movie, and I'll pay extra for that privilege. The only way I would complain about price is if I were a movie connoisseur and went about once a week! Yes, everything gets ridiculously expensive if you do it quite often. Bottom line, as a treat, it is fine. However, if you're picky about money, going here every week before a movie is a bad idea. Other than that, I've always had very friendly bartenders. Yeah, sometimes they are busy, but that doesn't make them unfriendly. Please don't expect to be waited on hand and foot and chatted up like best friends when the bar is crowded.

The bartender wasn't very friendly to us, and we felt like we were bugging him every time we went up to the bar to order a drink. Meanwhile, there were people wasted and having some wild conversations and the bar....and the bartender seemed much more interested in participating in that than serving us. Didn't feel welcome. Also, our "flatbread" was basically a microwaved frozen pizza that was way overpriced. I was kinda excited to try this little bar before our movie, but not impressed.

Wanted to see what a fine dining experience at a movie theater would entail. I was disappointed. Not just disappointed very disappointed. We were there Saturday evening. Let's start with the good to be fair.The Good -We were seated rather quickly. The gal asked if we had reservation...there were only two other couples in there. That was funny. -The food choices on the menu were excellent. -The Voodoo Shrimp - Just the shrimp part was excellent.- The decor and the ambiance The Bad -Slow service- Our waiter seemed as though he had just woken up a few minutes ago. He did not know the menu and was seemed very uninterested. We chalked that up as " maybe he is new". Our food took over 30 mins. At this point we are only couple # 2 in there. He did follow up with us and made sure our glasses were full.- My Food - Coleslaw - lacked taste - Seemed like I was eating raw cabbage. Maybe that is what it as supposed to be, but as far as I can remember I have never had coleslaw that way. My sweet potato cake tasted good, but was cold in the center and warm on the outsides. I was confused as I did not know if it was supposed to be cold, warm or hot. Portion sizes are small and although I am not a huge eater, the food left me hungry after I was done. For a $14.00 meal in Burnsville, I was hoping to be full and completely satisfied. The UnacceptableWith portion sizes the way they are, the food being mediocre and the level of service at this venue, I find the prices unacceptable.

My husband and I live just up the road from this theater. The theater itself is great, however, it's unlikely that we will go back for a VIP movie, dinner/drinks since the bar/restaurant upstairs was so disappointing the last time we were there. When they first opened, the menu was great, the bartenders were okay and it seemed like a good new spot to go. However, the last time we were there the bartender was so unbelievably rude/disrespectful, that it prompted me to write a note to the manager (I never did receive any sort of response, which just makes it worse). Having been in the service industry for the better part of my working career, I do understand that everyone has nights where they are off or cranky or whatever the case may be. But this was not the first time we have had rude service from their bartenders and unfortunately, it's not likely we will be back, purely based on the service alone.If you are in the mood for a VIP movie, I recommend going out to eat somewhere else first and then sneaking a bottle of wine into the VIP section, because it's not worth the money or time to go this bar/restaurant.