bad service!! forced to pay a tip. andfoodwas not prepared as we requested
on august 7th i met 5 of my friends for brunch. their were only 3 other tables with customers in the entire restaurant. and there were no patrons at the bar either. (that should tell you something)
although there were not many customers, i waited almost 15 minutes for the waitress to come over to take my drink order.
she had no personality and hardly said a word. i ordered a bloody mary to drink. she came over and placed a tall glass with 5 ice cubes and clear liquid in front of me. i thought the ice cubes had melted. i asked her what it was. she advised me it was for the "bloody mary bar" and pointed near the door. it was my vodka. if i had not asked she would have said nothing.
i went to the so called bloody mary bar. there were two carafes of tomato juice on the table not in ice. i would think it should have been kept on ice so it would not spoil so i consider that a potential health risk. it made me wonder if they are doing that out where the customers can see what health risks are they taking in the kitchen where we cannot see? there were a few dishes with olives and peppers. some were empty. for a restaurant that had no customers you would think they could keep them full. there was no celery which i usually like. but i made a drink.
after more time past, she finally came and took our orders. again she hardly spoke, she would just look at you when it was your turn to speak. after ordering, the waitress brought out the appetizers others had ordered one at a time. i did not think much about it until it was time for the main courses.
the main courses were brought out one at a time with a long gap of time in between. now, i was brought up and my friends were to, to wait until everyone has theirfoodbefore eating. because of the long time between each plate so we could not do that. eggs do not stay hot long.
after four others got theirfoodthere was another long gap of time and i still had not gotten mine. so i asked where ourfoodwas. her reply was "we serve tapas style." i guess the restaurant really does not know what that means. here is a definition of tapas style "tapas are as a wide variety of small plates, finger foods, and appetizers. the entire meal consists of these smaller dishes that are shared around the table, encouraging guests to order many of the different dishes."
i think she needs to understand that eggs benedict is not a small plate that can be shared. nor my rice bowl. if they want to serve tapas style they need to have a menu with small plates to share not individual meals.
after finally getting the last two meals neither of ours was cooked the way we asked. my friend specially asked for her egg yolk to be hard because she has digestive problems when it is not. well, the yolk was not hard. the waitress never came back to check if everything was ok. so both of us ate thefoodthe way it came out because we figured we would have to wait a long time to get it corrected and most of our friends were almost done with the meals served so much earlier than ours.
here is the real kicker. when she brought our bills there was an automatic 20% tip on the bill.
when i asked if i could reduce it she said no, it is management policy. i do not recall seeing that anywhere on the menu. i am usually a very good tipper, tipping more than 20% at times because that is how i put myself through college but she did not deserve even 20%. i could see having to wait as long as we did if the restaurant was busy but it was not. i can't image how bad it would be if the tables were full.
it took 2 hours to be served. that was ridiculous.
i do not recommend this restaurant to anyone.