disappointing. this review relates to a weekday lunch in the downstairs portion (shorter, less expensive menu) of the restaurant. i cannot comment at this time on the upstairs experience.
a friend and i agreed to give the "new" merchant's a try for a casual lunch. i'm not taking points away for this, but it's worth noting that valet parking applies only for dinner.
with no one ahead of us at 12:50, there were no clean tables. plenty of empty ones, but no clean ones. the hostess was kind enough to wipe down a table for us. unfortunately, the table and the seats were both left very wet. when we both sat down, we grinned at each other because we realized we now had wet bottoms. before we could dry the table with our napkins, two water glasses were placed, lip down, before us. i'm no ocd germophobe, but i'm not keen on "wipedown" water touching the rim of my glass. so, we just skipped the "triple filtered" bottle of water presented by the waitress. i'm not even sure why they had to be placed upside down, now that i think about it.
one odd thing we noted before we ordered was that it was difficult to tell who worked there and who was just dining. i'm not suggesting that restaurants must have uniforms, but it was unclear who to ask for anything or who was approaching your table. the wait staff could be discerned through a little observation, but there were other people who appeared to work there just floating about in nice, but otherwise very civilian, attire. i even mistook the hostess for a patron at first, thinking she was asking me if she could sit at the bar.
in any event, the staff were friendly and polite. my friend ordered the fish tacos, and i ordered the grilled chicken breast sandwich. the waitress informed us they were out of fish but were offering crabmeat tacos, which was a more than adequate substitute in principle. each dish was served with a side; my friend ordered sweet potato fries, and i ordered traditional potato fries.
the crabmeat tacos were adequate. they weren't particularly flavorful, but they certainly weren't remarkable. my friend told me that she "would rather go to chile burrito", and comparing these to chile burrito is just unfair. but this review isn't about the amazing food at chile burrito -- perhaps another day i'll tackle that.
my grilled chicken sandwich was dry and, like the crabmeat tacos, flavorless. i was excited about trying the sage mayonnaise that came with this sandwich, but it was just lost among the other toppings (tomato, lettuce, onion). i even checked to see if it was on the sandwich -- it was. the breast itself was a terrible cut. it had a lot of sinew and gristle and was difficult to work around.
the fries were excellent, however. they appeared to be freshly cut and fried. these were by far the best part of the meal. we didn't order the duck-fat fried tater tots, but i can tell you that they certainly looked delicious and came with several different condiments.
again, the service was friendly, if slow and not particularly attentive. this seemed even more odd with five different people, by our count, all in different sorts of attire floating around in what appeared to be a relatively slow time, since the lunch crowd had mostly dispersed by the time our food arrived at just shy of 1:30. my unsweet tea was refilled once after running dry -- with sweet tea. being southern, this was tolerable, but the sweet tea even managed to have an odd, bland flavor. i'm no tea aficionado, but it just wasn't quite right.
as mentioned above, we arrived at 12:50 with no one ahead of us. it was 17 minutes from seating to ordering, and another 20 from ordering to presentation. this wouldn't be a problem at all for a dinner, but we found it a bit slow for a weekday ("business") lunch in downtown nashville. the total bill, before gratuity, was about $26.
there was no single thing that was horrendous, and i think we would have been happier if there were just one thing very badly wrong. instead, it was an all-around, consistently sub-par meal. i'll give merchant's a little bit of forgiveness since this is purportedly new management. i hope they work these things out. unfortunately, i just can't recommend the downstairs portion of merchant's at this point.