I don't enjoy writing negative reviews but unfortunately, our experience last night warrants this feedback. My partner and I took his parents out to dinner at Byte on a Thursday evening - we arrived around 6:15pm and was seated at the only table large enough to fit four people, which was actually set for seven. We double checked if this was okay and was told yes. Our three waters came out right away; the one glass of wine didn't come for 10min or so. We waited another 10min for our orders to actually be taken. The restaurant started to fill up more and we noticed a large party waiting to come in. We flagged the server and asked if she wanted us to move to a four-top that just cleared. She laughed and said no. A few min later the owner / manager came over and asked if we could move to the smaller table. We understood and were happy to - as we started to gather our things and move over, he stopped us and said "never mind" and then asked us for our extra plates and silverware that were still set at our table (he was pushing two tables together). We obliged and were cheerful about everything. We noticed service seemed to be slow since they had only the one server and one bartender (who looked as though he was the owner / manager), and two people in the kitchen, and expected that we would be there for awhile. About 20min later the server came by and mumbled that she had forgotten to put our order in and listed off off our orders to confirm that she had it correct. At this point (around 6:55) we started to get a little nervous / antsy. We had ordered two pizzas, two bowls of lentil soup, and a fall salad - all of us had put our winter jackets back on because it was freezing in the restaurant and we had been sitting there for 40min. We continued to watch as plates of food, pans of pizzas, bowls of soup kept coming out and going to all of the tables except for ours. We asked the server how much longer until our food came out she apologized and said it was coming out now. That was her repeated response three more times as we watched her serve the food we ordered to tables and parties who placed their orders after us. Despite our ticket being entered 20min later than it was supposed to be, it didn't appear as though anyone stepped in to notify the kitchen staff to prioritize getting our orders out first or before the later tables. We didn't get the two bowls of soup or plate of salad until around 7:40pm. My partner's parents finished these dishes before my pizza of the day finally came out (after we watched our server bring it to the table behind us and ask if someone had ordered it, and realized it should have came to us). This didn't push us to the edge until we saw her take out more pizzas, including two pepperoni pizzas, and bring it to other tables that arrived after us. At that point we flagged her and asked her to bring the check and cancel our pepperoni pizza. It was past 8pm, we had been there for over two hours, half our party had finished their food, one person had just gotten their food, we were STILL waiting on an entire pizza that had no signs of coming our way, and it was uncomfortable sitting in a dining area that was so cold. She appeared very confused about our request and went to the owner / manager. As I boxed up my food he came over and simply said "My apologies! My apologies. I'm a little short staffed". And that was it. No acknowledgement of what he was apologizing for (if he even knew), no questions about our experience, no offer to comp anything or ask us to wait just a few min and they would have our last pizza up for us at no charge. Just handed the check over and walked away.
Byte is the type of local small business establishment you want to love and support. They are trying to do something different and we were very excited to try out their food. We know it's tough to run a restaurant, turn profits and find good workers. We understand restaurants are short staffed and as guests dining in, we always try to be patient, accommodating, and as understanding as possible. However, the service last night was undeniably missing the mark across the board. We walked away with a materially negative experience that left us all feeling extremely disappointed, upset, and regretting our decision to go out for dinner. As a small business owner, especially restaurant owner, you never want your guests feeling that way when they leave. If the owner or server would have at least acknowledged what was going on, said or did ANYTHING that would have made us feel like they were genuinely apologetic about how we were treated and served last night, this would have been a different story and experience. Instead we were barely served, kept being told our food was on its way without any status details or explanation across two hours (moreover, blatantly lying about when our food would be ready and whether it was actually being prepped or not), and left confused, cold, hungry, and frustrated. read more