I was genuinely excited to try this place after seeing countless videos and hearing so many people rave about it. Unfortunately, after driving 40 minutes to get there, the experience was disappointing from start to finish.
We arrived around 6:20 PM on Saturday, May 30th. The restaurant appeared to have roughly six open tables in a dining room of about fifteen tables. A party ahead of us was seated immediately (perhaps they had a reservation), but when we approached the host stand, we were told the wait would be 40 minutes.
There was no visible crowd waiting, but okay, fair enough.
The host mentioned we could be seated outside immediately. With storm clouds rolling in and the Florida humidity doing its thing, we politely declined and asked to be added to the waitlist.
While we were putting our name down, the party that had just been seated inside got up and moved outside. Naturally, I asked if that changed anything. The answer was still "40 minutes."
I'm not a mathematician, but that one was hard to follow.
We stepped outside to find somewhere nearby to wait. There wasn't really anything in the plaza, and I noticed I never received a confirmation text. Since most restaurants using waitlists send some type of confirmation these days, I had a bad feeling and decided to go back in to verify my information.
A different hostess was at the stand. I explained that I wanted to confirm my phone number because I hadn't received a text. She looked at the tablet and said, "I got you."
Okay... but I wasn't asking if you had me. I was asking if you had my number.
Again, I asked to confirm it. Again, I was told, "You're good."
So my wife and I went back to our car and waited.
Forty minutes came and went.
Nothing.
At around 7:15 PM, my wife noticed they were on OpenTable and made a reservation for 7:30 PM just in case. By 7:20 PM, I decided to walk back inside and check on our status.
This is where things went completely off the rails.
Both hosts looked up our name and, with surprising enthusiasm, informed us that they had canceled our place on the waitlist.
Why?
Because they had supposedly texted and called us with no response.
I asked what number they contacted.
Turns out the number was wrong by one digit.
The same phone number I had specifically come back inside to verify.
The same phone number that nobody actually verified.
When I reminded the hostess that I had literally come back to confirm my number and was told, "I got you," she seemed completely unfazed. The other host then insisted that he had read the number back to me and that I had confirmed it.
After telling my wife what he claimed, she told me that not only had he read the number back correctly, but she had repeated it correctly to him as well. So the information was clearly correct at that point, which makes it seem like the number was changed before the reservation was saved.
At that point I asked to speak with a manager.
To his credit, he came over quickly. Unfortunately, instead of immediately focusing on solving the problem, the initial response felt more focused on defending what had happened.
What frustrated me most wasn't the mistake itself. Mistakes happen.
It was the lack of ownership and the lack of a solution.
After waiting nearly an hour because of an error made by the restaurant, I had to repeatedly ask what the plan was. Even then, the answer was essentially, "Maybe another 20 minutes. I'm not really sure."
That's where the experience completely fell apart for me.
A simple:
"I'm sorry. Let me get you seated outside with a drink while we get an indoor table ready."
Or:
"We made a mistake. You're next for the first available table."
Or even:
"I understand why you're upset. Let me see what I can do to make this right."
Any of those responses would have gone a long way.
Instead, I was left feeling like I was inconveniencing everyone by expecting a solution to a problem they created.
As we were leaving, the manager followed us outside and said he wanted to help if we were willing to work with him. The problem was that even then, there still wasn't an actual solution being offered.
At that point, after nearly an hour of waiting, multiple missed opportunities to verify information, a canceled spot on the waitlist, and no clear path forward, we decided to leave.
I drove 40 minutes to try this restaurant and never even got the chance to order a drink.
That's impressive in its own way. read more