rebutting the cuisine queen (re: sunday brunch at majestic is anything but). i was blown away at the negative review that "the cuisine queen" gave of the majestic grille's sunday brunch. as someone who eats there often, particularly on sunday mornings, i know all about the restaurant's sunday brunch. while the "queen" is entitled to her opinion, i believe she is wrong on most of her points.
first, the "queen" says it took a long time for her party's drinks to arrive. while i'm not saying that this is b.s., i have always gotten my drinks in a timely manner, even on days when it's really busy. if what the "queen" says is true, it could be more the fault of the server, because the bartender who usually works sundays (lisa) is pretty punctual when it comes to serving drinks. although i usually sit at the bar, my drinks come in a timely manner even when i'm at a table. that said, the majestic usually hires excellent wait staff who are very professional.
second, the "queen" mentioned that she only got "one small container of butter and two tiny containers of strawberry jam for seven women." i usually go to brunch there with my friends (typically over seven people) and that has never happened. usually, each person gets the butter and jam/jelly with their individual basket of biscuits. so, if the "queen's" group got one basket of biscuits, she is extremely unlucky.
third, as someone who eats at the majestic for sunday brunch quite often, i can say with confidence that my order is right about 99% of the time. in the rare instances that it wasn't, the mistake is corrected immediately, and i have my order in less than five minutes. having said that, i wasn't there when the "queen" and her friends dined that day, but my friends and i never had a situation where most of our orders were wrong. again, maybe the "queen" is extremely unlucky.
however, the "queen" did mention that her group's orders didn't come out at the same time. while i never experienced that at sunday brunch, i had a similar experience last december when i celebrated my college graduation. although my party (which i believe consisted of about twenty people) didn't get their meals at the same time, my belief was the reason for that might have been due to the diversity of orders, some of them requiring a longer preparation time than others (of course, that's just an opinion). despite that, the service was good and everyone seemed satisfied.
fourth, i find it hard to believe that any restaurant (even mcdonald's) would serve pancakes without butter. neither i nor my friends ever experienced getting either pancakes or french toast without butter. maybe the "queen" had a terrible server, but i'm sure if she went to the majestic for sunday brunch for the next three months, i doubt she would come up short on butter. by the way, the syrup, in my opinion, isn't too sweet, as the "queen" stated. also, if she wants french toast on the cheap, she can go to the waffle house.
as for the lack of servers (which may have contributed to her experience), that might have been true, although the majestic has gotten a lot better at scheduling wait staff to coincide with downtown events, particularly those at the orpheum theater. if the "queen" decides to go the majestic again, i'm confident that a fully staffed restaurant will be more attentive to her needs.
my assessment of the majestic grille is that it is one of the finest restaurants in memphis, with excellent chefs capable of cooking a variety of entrees (including carbonara, which is good as most italian (as in italy, not american) restaurants).
i wish the majestic grille and their owners, patrick and deni reilly, much success in the future.