Our experience at this dining establishment was truly awful. A perfect trifecta: lousy waitstaff, no interest in the customer experience, capped by terrible food. While our good friends were touring Watches & Wonders in Geneva, my wife and I took the Telepherique du Saleve up the mountain to get some fresh air on a lovely spring Sunday (April 14, 2024). We decided to stop for lunch at L'Observatoire and sat outside on the front deck.
It was difficult to secure a table since so many people wanted to have a drink and eat there, but unluckily we did finally get one. No one at the restaurant was assigning tables, you just had to grab one as someone stood to leave. Many people eventually left without dining since the wait staff was short-handed and showed no ability to manage the flow of patrons. We watched at least 6-7 groups of people sit at a table, never get served, and simply get up and leave. It took us about a half hour to get any attention and the employees were frenzied and showed no interest in our experience.
They failed to bring our drink orders before or with the food, so my wife and I drank out of our hiking water bottles. The tables were not getting cleaned off after the patrons left, so bottles kept blowing off the tables in the breeze and breaking on the deck. None of the glass was ever cleaned up for the nearly two hours we were there. More than once the waiters and waitresses stepped over the broken glass and never returned to clean it up. Twice I warned ladies with their dogs not to approach the tables near us since there was broken glass on the ground everywhere.
Since the servers never came back to our table after our food was delivered, I had to intercept a busy employee near the front door to pay the bill. On top of this all, my wife got food poisoning that night and was miserable all-day Monday. This was honestly our worst meal ("dining" is far too elegant a word for this place) experience while traveling globally in over a decade. I would never go to this restaurant again, and I believe the health inspector should visit there more often. I've never encountered a less interested, frenzied, and ruder group of restaurant personnel 'dans le monde'. This was certainly the last thing we expected of casual French dining in such a glorious setting. My advice: "enjoy the mountain and avoid the frustration of a visit to L'Observatoire". read more