awful service, less than mediocre food.. dear public,
i'm writing to describe one of the most disappointing dining experiences i've had in recent memory. i together with my father and a friend went to felecia suzanne's with high expectations. i have been living in memphis for 4 years and since moving here, my father had suggested that we should dine at fss, partially bc he had known her from when she was a child and had been a close friend to her parents in jonesborro, ar many years before. finally, after four years of talking about it, we finally got a chance when we could all be together to eat dinner at fss. you see my father works overseas and is seldom in the us, so finally we were going to get to meet felecia and enjoy a nice dining experience. unfortunately, the experience was a nightmare. the service was lousy (to put it nicely). because, i knew my father was anticipating this dinner, i called early in the day to make reservations, i requested that we meet felecia to the maitre'd, they said it was no problem. throughout the night this theme became the consistency, they'd say they'd do something for you, and when it was time for them to do it, no one would follow through. felecia was visible to us, yet not wanting to be rude we requested our waiter a second time if he could mention to her that we were now there and that we'd like to say hello. that message never made it to felecia. felecia spoke with another group, our table was ignored. soon our waiter started to ignore us, it took more than a half hour before they took our order. they brought us the pre-meal palet appetizers to the table before they even took our order. i made eye contact with the waiter on three separate occassions to say we are ready to make our order and yet he managed to avoid us at all costs. there were three of us at the table we ordered a bottle of wine and were brought 2 wine glasses, we requested another wine glass and waited another 30 minutes to receive it, in between that 30 minutes of waiting for the wine glass we had to ask the bus boy to get us one, it was another 10 minutes after that that we received the wine glass, mind you our table was less than 10 feet from the bar where the wine glasses originated. later my father ordered a martini, again another 20 minute wait. as i tell you this, you may be thinking wow it must have been super busy. absolutely not, we were one of the first to arrive for dinner, and only 7-8 tables were occupied (on a tuesday night). again we made repeated requests to meet felecia, even the manager took note of it and said that he'd make sure that felecia said hello to us. this never happened. finally, we got our food. at this point the evening was not salvageable, the food really wasnt that good. i got the colorado lamb chops, for 33$ and i assume all 33$ were for the meat and potatoes bc zero of it was for the service, it was fair, im not going to rip everything about the restaurant and say it was all bad, but for 33$ a plate, its supposed to taste good and feel good while you are in the restaurant. it did not. my father had a fish dish, pecan crusted fish, mediocre at best. my friend had the chiriso scallops, again they were okay, but not 25$ + okay. by the end of the night, when it was finally time to tell the waiter that the service was unacceptibly poor, were were not met with apologies on how to make it better, we were met with confrontation. as i tell you this, i do want you to keep it in mind that although my father had not seen felecia in more than 20 years, he knew her parents well and considered them to be family friends. the sting of the $250 bill is not what pushed my father of the edge. he could afford to eat there every day for the rest of his retirement and have money left over for us to eat there until we retire. the sting of the $250 meal was attached to the service and lack of respect or lack of decency that one might give to a complete stranger or perhaps an old friend.
i honestly feel bad for my father, he had such high expectations for our dinner tonight, we've literally been talking about going there for 4 years. i could see a sense of pride in his eys, some excitement that this lady from a small town in arkansas had made it big in memphis. he bragged on and on how great of a chef she was from a childhood age, that her mother suzanne (his personal friend) who was also a great cook...i could see him welling up with pride for this woman whom id only met as an infant. .....and then to get piss pour service, followed by mediocre food at $$$ prices, what a huge disappointment..... and when just when you thought it couldnt get worse, it did. on our long drive back to collierville, tn i received a phone call from felecia, this the first attempt of her to reach out and say hello. i didnt pick up bc i was driving, but it was obvious that by the message she left that her intent wasnt to apologize, it was her reaching out to tell us we were not welcome to come back. upon arriving home, we called felecia, and when my father asked if he could say something, while she yelled at him, she said no, and proceeded to curse him while he attempted to offer some clarity on the situation. needless to say, this was a bridge burning event. if felecia had bothered to come out to her floor to say hello she might have seen that her service was extremely slow, not for lack of people there were plenty. when you put your name on a restaurant, everyone in the restaurant should act as if they are felecia suzanne themselves. and by the phone call she had with my father, i guess they do.
so in closing i'll say this. the food is mediocre at best, and and very pricey. the service sucks. mcdonalds has a far better value. felecia would be doing herself a huge favor if she'd truly listen to customer complaints and not take the word of her staff over the customer experience.
this review is based on the experience i had with my loved ones at fss. i will not be returning, and i do not recommend you too.
my father paid for the dinner, they said they'd cover the cost. he refused. it was never about the money. but when you do pay for 5 star you expect 5 star. felecia's phone call to further add insult to injury really really was shocking and completely unacceptible.