On our way up to NC on 11/7 and stayed the night nearby. We were excited to see a Sonny's so close…read moreand headed there for dinner. We loved the new look and were seated quickly on for a Friday night. The hostess was super friendly, as were other staff we encountered later. The rest of our experience was surreal to say the least.
To start, it was so cold in the restaurant, as was noted by other diners around us. Not sure why, but it was completely unnecessary. Our waitress (we later learned she was also the bartender) took our order (3 soft drinks, some corn nuggets, and 3 meals), and brought the drinks out quickly. As she was leaving, one of our party knocked over their drink -- and you know how big the cups are! The waitress said she'd be back with a towel, then disappeared. I saw her go into the kitchen, then come out and go to the bar where she began taking orders and serving people. I was dumbfounded. We did our best to wipe up the spill and ice, using the paper towels at the table, but we had a huge wet pile sitting there.
After about 5 minutes another server came by and we asked for towels, telling her our server never came back. That new server came back with a tray for the ice and mess, as well as a wet towel to wipe the table down. It was probably another 7 minutes before our server returned, this time with a replacement drink and then plopped the corn nuggets down and walked away. That was it... and the nuggets didn't have the little skewers nor the powdered sugar.
About 10 minutes later the meals came (from a different server), and my chopped brisket sandwich wasn't cold, but it was barely warm, and a bit grizzly. We kept wondering if this was a brand new location and the staff just weren't properly trained, but when I asked another server later how long they'd been open, she told me 2 years!
We barely saw our waitress -- and yes, I understand team style service, but this was just weird. I actually wondered if it was my FSU shirt as we were in Bulldog territory, but regardless, I've never had such poor service at a Sonny's.
Management, you need to look into this and see what was happening and why we received such poor treatment. The rest of the staff treated us well... maybe having a bartender cover tables in the dining room is too much?
