We had an unbelievably horrible experience. As in, we walked out after ordering food and watched unhygienic and immature behavior. More on that later.
Some background- we have a boat and were considering a slip at South Bay marina. A big draw is a full service bar and restaurant in addition to a pool and bbq area.
When we walked up from our transient slip we saw a food truck with sitting area and a separate building with another seating area. There was no signage and no one was there to greet. We took a gamble and went into the building and sat at the bar. There was some signage there so at least we knew we were in the right place. We asked if we could sit at the bar to eat and the bartender (?) said sure.
And we sat. Saw servers running in and out but no one talked to us. It's ok, we'll wait. 10 minutes later we were asked by one of the servers if we'd been helped by the bartender (?) (who has just bickered with another server about the beers on tap, full of eye rolling and sass). Mind you, this is a place with $15-$20 sandwiches on their menu. I though, hm - a bit odd for front of house activity but I'm hungry. Server who stopped to help us was very nice but after taking the order it was the last we saw of her.
Part of our meal was an appetizer that the server said would come out first. Great, yes please! After the order went in we got to watch the epic show put on by the dishwasher. The dish area was a combo food prep area and hairdressing station based on her actions. My husband said, at least we know she's not making our food as she ran her hands through her long hair before taking plates out of the dishwasher.
The cook was great - she made our appetizer fast and yelled out order up. Three servers looked at the ticket (not our server) and rolled their eyes and put it back down. Why would they run food that isn't theirs? And so began the longest 10 minutes ever documented. It was a dance; the cook yelled out about an appetizer up, the servers rolled their eyes and went back to organizing tickets or asking each other how much vodka goes in a Bloody Mary.
Then, things got more anxious when the cook started yelling "hey their entree is up but their appetizer is here". It had the opposite effect; the servers grabbed food sitting behind our food. Including our main dish, a $20 lobster roll that we took a chance on.
I thought about offering to run my own food but then the bartender (?) made eye contact with me so I thought great - maybe she'll think "hm these people have been here for a while and I think they ordered food". Nope, I got an eye roll. Is it me, miss bartender? Is it because people dared come to eat where you work? Questions I'll never get answered.
Although this was an entertaining 25 minutes of our lives we decided to put cash down for our drinks and leave.
Never to be visited again. Let's go back to basics, Skaliwags:
- train your front of the house staff
- buy the back of house staff hair nets
- add another cook and give your current cook a raise
- teach your servers to stick to a section
- move some attention away from social media and make people be want to stay
We're coasting down to Jimmy Seas where we should have been all along. read more