I rarely give a one or two star rating, however I am fairly upset about my experience at Blue Fire Bar & Grill and I think my reaction is justified. The only reason I'm giving an extra star is because last night I hung out at the bar had some wine and had a lovely experience. It was today's incident that was just plain disappointing. Due to the snow storm, driving wasn't happening so I opted for lunch at the hotel. Walked up to the hostess booth at 12:45 and nobody was there. There were people dining but there was a large stand alone sign that read, "Dining Room is Closed." We were confused because there were people eating and well, it was prime time lunch hour. Luckily we grabbed a woman's attention and she said the dining room was in fact open and that she would try and find us a table. There were about nine open tables but most were still dirty from the previous diners. She did find one eventually, and the three of us sat down.
We were handed menus, mine covered in schmutz which the waitress immediately noticed and swapped in a clean one. The menu was decent, two soups, couple salads and some sandwiches. Standard lunch fare. We weren't given a drink menu, which was fine, however I really could have gone for a STIFF ONE after this. When we asked our waitress what the soup of the day was she had no idea. Her response was something along the lines of, we are so busy because of the storm and are in the weeds. There were five tables in the dining room. Five. One table of four, two tables of three and two tables of two. Each table at a different part in their meal. I would not consider that swamped but hey, sure you're swamped alright no worries, we were in NO rush at all and we made that clear. In fact, my Aunt said, "No worries!!! We have all day!"
So after finding out what the soup was, my sister went with that choice, some sort of steak and potato mix that she enjoyed. Turkey club went to my Aunt. The mouth watering "Carved Turkey" was more like Wegman's Cold Cut Turkey and the bread it was served on looked like a weight watchers 90 calorie flat bread pita type thing. I don't even know how to explain it but it wasn't up to restaurant standards. But hey, we could deal with that because there was nothing wrong with the food it just wasn't the quality we expected. What we couldn't understand however was the completely raw chicken on my salad.
So here we are, catching up on old times. I'm eating my salad which was just okay, eating the sliced grilled chicken without examining it first because 1) Why would I need to examine my chicken first and 2) We hadn't seen each other and months and I wasn't paying much attention to my food. So I have two pieces left and I put one onto my fork and moments before putting it into my mouth I noticed it is completely raw. Not borderline raw, not "Come on Sam it's just a little underdone raw" RAW RAW. I do not send food back. If I don't like something I just don't eat it. Well, something had to be said about this one because well, it's a health concern. I called my waitress over showed her the chicken and she said, "Oh okay, do you want something else?" It's not really okay. It's raw. Of course I didn't say this. I just said, No thanks and she went back to the kitchen. She came back to say she would take it off the bill. (Ya think?) But that was it? No manager came over and I was shocked. This wasn't some rinky dink restaurant, it was affiliated with the Marriott and I thought that this place would be much more professional.
I have worked in the restaurant business for years and years and if my guest had a problem with their food I made sure they were happy before they left. Taking their meal off the bill was an immediate fix but making them feel important to ensure they come back is SO CRUCIAL. None of that was done. This was raw chicken we are talking about, not a quesadilla that I ate half of and didn't love. I am pretty disappointed and because of how this situation was handled I will not be back. read more