shambolic!. okay, let me start by saying the i have been in the professional restaurant business for almost 35 years. i started as a waitress and came into the kitchen in 1989 and have been there ever since. i have worked all over the country for some of it's most talented chefs and really good restaurants.
having said that, when i go out to a restaurant, the food and service had better be good! this, sadly, was not my experience at "hell's kitchen".
let's start with the fact that i went on line to look the place up. my partner said it was known for it's "soul food". being brought up in the south (i grew up in south carolina and went to culinary school there), i was intrigued to see what (i will use the nicer word) "northerner's" would do with, basically, southern favorites; cornbread, red beans and rice, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, catfish fingers, chicken wings. dinner entrees include a choice of catfish or fried chicken with all the sides.
we get to hell's kitchen at 9:02pm, so too late for anything but the alla carte menu which had everything but the fried chicken. which was fine with us. i wanted catfish, my partner, anything made without meat, because she is vegetarian. the place to order is in a drafty hallway area that is where the servers have to go to pick up food. it consist of a over sized table and a pleasant young lady, who sadly did not know whether things had meat in them or not.
we ordered, and then was told that we could not use a credit card, but had to use cash. fine, okay we go and pay the two dollar fee to get cash and pay. it will take 20 minuets, we are told. i question this in my mind, because i know that if this food is done right, it should be a matter of heating things and dropping some catfish. a good kitchen could do it in 8 to 10 minuets. but okay, 20 minuets, we can have some drinks.
we are told to seat ourselves at the right side of the room. clearly, we were getting no service. once at the table, no one we serving even water, so i had to go to the bar to get my own drinks. after waiting for 10 minuets for a clearly overwhelmed and very slow bartender, i am told that i can't order two drinks at a time unless the person i am buying the drinks for is standing there! i have never, and i have been to red neck bars in the south, been told something so crazy! i go, and get my partner, we wait another 5 minuets for the bartender to acknowledge us, we order a raspberry cosmo and an appletini. this came to $19.50 for rail vodka and drinks that came in margaretta glass! (cheaper at the townhouse and the service is better!)
we get back to our table and it has been over an 45 minuets! i go over to the young lady that we ordered from and she says that they thought that we left, because no one was sitting at our table! our food was now cold, and they would have to re make the order, which meant waiting another 20 minuets! now you can imagine i am not too happy at this point! on top of it, as i have come out with these drinks that were not very good (my appletini was way too sweet and didn't have very much vodka). i was told by a manager the the drink prices were "downtown prices"! $9 for less than 2.5 oz of rail alcohol per drink is normal for people in downtown minneapolis to pay! i was outraged! this guy must really think i was born yesterday!
let's go to the meal. after waiting an hour and 15 minuets for out food. it came out on plastic plates. that was one thing. but it was not hot. the mac and cheese was clearly from a box. no crust on top. the noodles were bland and for that matter, all of the food was cold and bland. blackeyed peas, one of my favorite things from back home tasted caned and had no seasoning. (insulting for a black southern girl like myself, really). the collard greens, again one of my favorite things, were strangely bland and had crunchy onions in it. the cornbread was good! it could have been a bit hotter, though. there was no care taken with the plating. we order, and did not get the redbeans and rice, which i feel was just as well. the nice young lady that took our money for the meal refunded our money. we ate, because by this time we were so hungry and frankly, i did not want to have to find another place to eat that late. the thing i really objected to with the food and service was the total lack of service. if this was the second time they did this for this event, the hell's kitchen staff has a lot to do in terms of learning to service their customer! as a professional, i was embarrassed for them!
after dinner, we went to hear shannon blowtorch spin! she was fantastic and had the crowd eating out of her hand. i was on the dance floor so long i got a foot cramp! that's when you know you have a good dj! the music was well mixed and thought out in her sets. she and naughty boyy played, for me, the best sets of the night, and it was an enjoyable night after all.
pop up or not, the owners of hell's kitchen need to be involved in how their restaurant is used not just by the event, but by your managers. you never know when you might be reviewed by someone who knows better!