horrible !!!!!. well.... i really hate to say that our first time at nick and sams in dallas was a huge bust!
we made our reservation 3 weeks in advance to ensure we would have a table. arrived at 7:30pm on saturday 1/26/13, which was what our reservation time was set for, to be advised it would be “just a second” before we could be seated. well of course there is no seating to wait, we had to walk around between a seating/dining area and the bar on a constant to avoid being trampled by the wait staff, management, hostesses, bartenders, and other waiting patrons. waited at the bar for 10 min before we could even get a glass of wine, not to mention the loud obnoxious techno music blaring in your ears so you can’t even hold a conversation with the person standing 6 inches from you. so first impression was more like a night club than an outstanding, first class steakhouse.
so 30 min. go by and we have not been seated, we waited another 15 min. and we ask about the hold up to be advised that it will be “just a tad longer, that tables are being cleaned”. okay, we invested this much time in the wait (45 min total now) and we were hungry, so we decided to try and stick it through. another 15 min. go by, still have not been seated. i confronted the hostesses because i saw numerous groups and couples that arrived after our 3 person group seated before our group. again, told we would be “seated shortly”, i told her we have already been waiting for an hour on a reservation made 3 weeks ago and we would like to be seated immediately. finally after another 15 min., we were taken to our table.
during our over-hour wait in the front of the restaurant, we saw wait staff showing a slab of the different cuts of meats and couldn’t wait to be shown the same. wanted to hear the specials like we had been over-hearing waiting to be seated. hoping that our food was going to be worth the wait we had just endured. let me say, huge disapointment. our service was horrible. our waiter did not shows us the slab of meats, did not tell us the specials, had no idea about the wines on the menu and could frankly give a crap we were even there. the bus boy cleaning off the tables around us was more attentive to what we needed, from more water, additional napkins, removing plates from the table, to the point i grabbed a $20 out of my wallet, grabbed him- held his hand while giving him the $20 bill and graciously thanked him for his attentiveness. the manager of our littlebackroom saw me do this, came to our table to ask us how everything was going. of course we told him how upset and disappointed we were. he then took our waiter in visual distance, and we could see him pointing his finger and obviously giving our waiter a butt chewing. all of this happened before we even got our main course.....
main course comes out: 3 filet mignons, order of grilled asparagus, garlic mash, and lobster mac. the filets were cooked almost to order, a little over on some and a little under on others. there was no seasoning (salt and pepper) on our meats, and none on the table to make up for the lack of it. so the meat was very bland, and the texture was disgusting. we each had to chew on a piece for what felt like 10 min. the filet is supposed to melt in your mouth, not act as a piece of chewing gum. needless to say we did not eat even half of our steaks. the asparagus was limp and tasted as if it had been soaked in vinegar before grilled, we didn’t eat that either. the garlic mash was really good, but then how hard is it really to get that wrong?! the lobster mac, which we all were so excited about, was runny and bland, just overly disappointing. complete and utter disappointment. our waiter cleared our plates without a word (which after the butt chewing who would expect him to even speak a single word to us), and broughtbackthe leftovers all in boxesbackto the table, we did not want to take any of our leftovers home and had he’d ask we would have declined. he then placed 3 plates and forks on the table and he apologized that “we” felt ignored by him, of course it was our fault because he would not take responsibility for his actions- it was all about how “we” felt and not his lack of service, and to make it up to us ordered us two desserts on the house. we did not even get to pick what we were getting as an apology for his lack of service. we were given a slice of chocolate chip cheesecake and a pastry dish with pistachio ice cream. the cheesecake was average, but we did not want cheesecake. the pastry dish was dry and flavorless- didn’t eat it, but the pistachio ice cream was pretty good and we devoured that.
while we were finishing our glasses of wine, kenan, the waiter serving a table beside ours, stopped to ask us how we liked our experience. we told him about or “experience from hell” from start to end and told him how we had been watching him all night and how we wished we would have had him as our server. he was very apologetic and gave us a card with his name on it and told us if we decided to comebackto call and ask for him and he would guarantee that our next experience would not be like the one we had. reality of it is, i don’t think we will ever gobackto nick and sams. we all have gotten better food, better service, and an overall better experience at restaurants like del frisco’s, lonesome dove, and as much as i hate to say this.... even saltgrass...
i’m sorry nick and sams, in our books your restaurant is not the best in dallas.
ps- we left our leftovers at our table in case you were wondering.....