This letter was sent three weeks ago to the Curtiss owner & Chez Ami manager; we've still received no response of any kind:
"One night in July 2019, we were celebrating not one but two happy occasions. That Tuesday we arrived early for our 7:00 p.m. reservation and we were seated right away in the patio area of Chez Ami. There were about seven people at the revolving bar, no tables inside the restaurant were occupied for dinner, and approximately three other tables on the patio were occupied, so it appeared to be a quiet evening.
Our server visited our table about ten minutes after our seating and took our drink order. About fifteen minutes later, our server returned to the table without drinks to take our food order. We explained that we wanted to "pace" our dinner slowly, so we could enjoy the evening for a few hours, and he happily agreed. We ordered bread service, salads, and dinner.
Our bread service arrived at the table approximately ten minutes later, but we had to ask our server once again as he passed by for the drinks that had been ordered almost half an hour prior. He brought our drinks shortly after that.
The salads arrived within minutes. The problem was that, just after the salads arrived at the table, a server from the kitchen came out with the side dish we ordered with dinner, the brussels sprouts. When we told her that was ordered as a side with our dinners, she told us they were hot and it would give them a chance to cool.
After our salads were finished (about 20 min. later) our server returned to the table to tell us our dinners were on their way (so much for the pacing), and he noticed the brussels sprouts that were placed on the table after the salads. He removed them and, when the dinners were brought out shortly after, what appeared to be a new iron dish of brussels sprouts was brought out. Our server explained to us, apologetically, that the staff in the kitchen was a bit "frazzled" because a family-style dinner was being prepared for a Nigerian basketball team in town who would be arriving shortly, and although the restaurant was slow (by now only one other table was occupied for dinner), everyone was quite busy.
When we finished our dinners, a friendly staff member came to remove everything and box our leftovers. At this point, our server returned to the table with dessert menus and took our dessert order: bread pudding and vanilla gelato. We thought we'd enjoy our dessert, maybe another glass of wine and/or cup of coffee or cappuccino afterwards.
We were never given the opportunity.
Before the dessert was brought out, a staff member BROUGHT US OUR CHECK! So the process of checking us out was started before coffee or another beverage was offered, and before dessert even arrived at the table. We held onto the folder with the bill, not prepared to pay because we expected to order additional items.
About fifteen minutes after ordering dessert, the kitchen staffer who brought the brussels sprouts early arrived at the table with, inexplicably, the bread pudding in one take-out container, and vanilla gelato in another take-out container (!! yes, gelato in a take-out container, already melting !!) to bring home.
We looked at the items placed on the table and we asked her why these were in take-out containers...that we planned on eating them at the restaurant with coffee or perhaps wine. Her response? To get us two spoons so that we could eat them out of the take-out containers.
At this point, we lost interest in dessert, coffee, wine, anything. We told our server we did not want the dessert and asked that it be taken off the bill. The fact of the matter was that we planned to spend the evening at the Curtiss enjoying a leisurely celebration. Instead, we paid $104 plus gratuity for a dinner of mishaps, only to be rushed out of the restaurant before it was even dark outside.
Our server finally returned with an adjusted bill, and once again disappeared. By this time, nobody was left on the patio, and the man who boxed up our dinners was finally passing through when we asked him to please give our credit card to our server so that we could leave.
We are not critical people. If this happened at a restaurant that does not have the superior status and reputation of the Curtiss Hotel, we would have been largely unaffected. It also would have been somewhat understandable had it been a busy evening for the restaurant, with more than just a few tables filled for dinner and more than just a few people at the revolving bar. We saw that the basketball team was located in one of the enclosed rooms, but the number of them plus the 2 of us still did not remotely come close to the total number of people filling a restaurant, including Chez Ami, on a busy night.
For an upscale restaurant of the caliber of Chez Ami, and for an evening during which we spent more than $100 (and were prepared to spend more had we been given the opportunity), this entire experience was highly unacceptable." read more