In all honesty, I really don't know where to begin. I was in the area to go to a party, but wanted a quick bite to eat before the festivites started. It's way clear across town for me so I didn't know at the time what might have also been available in the area.
The meal started in a pretty normal situation, that is being seated and having a glass of water or two. My gal and I were more or less the only customers in the resto (and were easily outnumbered by the staff). I ordered a simple fish and chips, and my gal ordered a blackened fish filet. What then followed was probably a comedy of errors and a horror in cuisine in a lot of ways. Remember, we were the ONLY table there for the longest time.
- our meal took over 45 minutes to come. I would ask and ask every 10 min, or so after the first 20 min, and I would be told by our waitress that it was only 3 min away.
- when the fish came, mine was kinda ok, but my gal's was stone cold. Worse, it was the wrong fish.
- they took it back, and then brought in another fish 10-15 later (again, what are they doing in an empty resto? running to the river and catching the fish? running to the closest supermarket?)
- my own meal was luke warm at best, and I was not all too thrilled. Worse, when asked what the heck was wrong to get both our orders wrong in an empty resto, all I would get was clueless responces
- we were offered a cup of soup in the meantime, a lobster bisque. After tasting that, I had to spit it out and push it away. With a peace offering like that, who needs enemies. It tasted literally like battery acid, with no lobster to speak of in the bisque and was totally unpalatable. As it was offered free, I didn't bother complaining as i was quite upset by then, but I'm sure they must have noticed me spitting out the soup and ignored it.
- we finally did get our dishes, the meal took well over 1 1/2 hours, in an EMPTY resto. We were comped the utterly horrid soup but absolutely nothing else and was charged full shot. I paid, left zero tip and blasted the resto the following night to their head office's email.
A few week's later, I had gotten a phone call from their office, and the rep their had gotten the story from the resto, plus my own email. Instead, the office told me to make it up, they offered me a dinner back there at that resto. I asked politely if it could be any other Joey's, as in all honesty, I really had no faith in their staff at all, and more importantly, I wasn't about to drive 80 min to and back across town (40 min each way)to possibly have another horrible meal. Now I understand that that particular Joeys may be some franchisee, but head office should have the ability to accomodate a simple request like that. Instead, he told me that it HAD to be that one, and ONLY that one. I then simply replied that I'll simply refuse to go to ANY Joey's from hereon, as it's obvious that he wasn't going to actually provide any real satisfaction.
I've since steered several people and myself over the weeks to other seafood restos, since there's no way on earth I'll ever let that disaster happen again. If anyone from Joey's reads this review, take a look at the number of reviews I've written about restaurants and so on. You've lost me and as many people I can warn for life people, and I was exactly the market you were looking for. read more