I preface this by saying I attempted 3x to call and give this feedback live first before writing a…read morereview.
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My friend and I came to Cultivar Ghirardelli for happy hour on a Friday, expecting a pleasant experience, but left feeling weird and offended.
To set the scene, there was only one woman working, and we were understanding that service might be slow due to this. The woman was friendly, but her behavior during a few interactions was quite off-putting.
First, we ordered happy hour wine flights. The woman mentioned she might be busy and explained that she'll come around to pour the wines in one glass for us since the other glasses were hot. She was proactive after we finished our first glass, pouring us the second into our first glasses. However, when it came to the third wine, we found it strange that she brought us a mini carafe of Cabernet while we weren't even halfway through our second wine. This inconsistency was a bit odd, especially since she told us upfront she'd pour for us after each round.
The second interaction was the most peculiar. My friend and I were ready to pay and waved the woman over. She approached us with a long receipt in hand, asking if we wanted our receipt. Assuming she was referring to the bill, we said yes. However, she became visibly confused when she realized she was handing us another table's receipt. She spent the next two minutes engaging in a back-and-forth conversation with us, arguing that we couldn't be asking for a receipt, that the receipt she had initially brought us belonged to another table, and that we still needed to pay. My friend and I were pretty offended at the last comment about us "still needing to pay", because that was exactly our intention in waving her over. During this exchange, I was completely dumbfounded, and she remarked, "You look mad, are you mad?" I didn't appreciate the comment about my face, especially since she was the one who was confused. She also mentioned that she was the only one working that day and had made an exception to order us food. This comment was also odd because the other parties around us had also ordered charcuterie boards.
Finally, as she was closing us out using the point-of-sale system, she refused to let me hold the device to enter my tip privately (we had tipped 20%). She insisted that she had to hold the device due to "WiFi issues". However, every time I've visited a dine-in restaurant with the same point-of-sale device, the waiters have simply handed it over to us. This entire interaction was incredibly strange.
Despite the unusual service, the venue is cute, airy and lively, and I genuinely enjoyed all of the wines that we tried in the flight. They were flavorful, fuller bodied, and delicious. We're disappointed that we had to leave with a sour and confusing taste in our mouths, and can't say we'd come back based on this experience.
