host without the most. sunday, october 19th a group of 6 lady friends and i planned to visit evergreen’s creekside cellars winery to celebrate a birthday of one of the group. with the rock & roll marathon going on that morning in denver we found ourselves 30 minutes late to our reservation for 11. keeping that in mind, we simply asked the host, an older balding man with a short white beard, to seat us wherever was best. he placed our group in the corner outside on the balcony. it was delightful! the air was cool, the sun was warm and we had a lovely time. our server was prompt and we lacked for nothing ordering appetizers, wine, and then lunch. the wine was good and went well with the lunch options of salads, sandwiches, and soups. select the half order if possible for sandwiches for they are quite large.
it was directly after lunch that our picturesque lunch promptly came to a horrible end. having never been here before this was my introduction to this winery/restaurant. but many of the other ladies within the group had been coming to creekside cellars for years. we had just ordered from our nice server desert when quite suddenly the host appeared at our table. as he stood over us all, he informed us that in 5 minutes there was a 1 o’clock reservation and we would need to hurry up. he then turned on his heel and left us all stunned. what had just happened we asked ourselves? i was told from the veterans of the table that he is always rude and to just take him with a grain of salt. but when he arrived 15 minutes later as we were eating our desert it became impossible to do so. he again told us there was a 1 o’clock reservation and all the party’s members had arrived. he said we must hurry up and leave. feeling more than just no longer welcomed we all starred up at him and watched him again leave our table. our desert was bitter in mouths after that. however, it quickly turned to a sour feeling in our stomachs when the host then pointed our table out to one of the waiting party members who came to our table to speak with us. by then we had just asked for our bill and was waiting for it to arrive.
the lady whose birthday it was is also a veteran customer of creekside cellars. she was so sad and angry by her treatment tears were springing to her eyes. for there, completely unoccupied in the other corner of the balcony was an empty 6 top table. the restaurant/winery was no longer in a lunch rush. why would the host refuse to seat them there? the future customer rudely spoke to us about wanting our table, telling us we were ruining she and her group’s experience. we informed her she had already done that for us and asked her to leave us alone. we had to ask her repeatedly to walk away, to leave before she finally did so.
it took some time for our receipts to arrive to the table where we informed our server about the host and future customer. eventually, we spoke to the owner of creekside. an older man as well. he did not offer us any concessions. speaking very softly he weakly apologized and made excuses for his host’s actions. it was busy that day. servers had become delayed arriving to work due to the marathon. the host was under a lot of pressure, etc. and he refused to believe we had seen the host point out our table and allow a future customer to come to our table. he would not believe the host had done anything wrong. and he offered us nothing in the way of getting us to return.
i’ve never been treated so poorly at a restaurant/winery in my life. i will never return. this host badly needs to be fired. the owner needs to hire a manager and step down from floor activities since he is unable to properly manage his employees. save your money. while the food is fine and the wine is good. it is neither worth the pricy price tag nor the insulting experience. bottomline: avoid evergreen’s creekside cellars winery. enjoy another one of evergreen’s many restaurants instead.