Four of us dined here for the first time for a friend's birthday. The layout is strange, and when my husband and I entered from the door not connected to the hotel, we were met with a sign asking us to see the hostess on the opposite side of the restaurant. This was a Saturday night at 7pm. It was not busy inside, yet when we got to the hostess stand there were at least three parties waiting with no hostess in sight.
We went in search of our friends who had already been seated. One thing that stood out from the beginning was the inconsistent service offered by wait staff. A very friendly, experienced woman initially talked to us about cocktails and took our drink orders. Later, another woman who was the polar opposite (lacked social skills, seemed confused and "out of it") took app and food orders.
A gentleman brought our first round of drinks. He was friendly and seemed experienced, but we didn't see him again unfortunately. The woman who took our food orders was on duty the rest of the evening... or not. She would disappear for long periods of time to the point that we had to source additional cutlery when food arrived, and at one point asked another server if he knew where she was. After one particularly long absence we assumed she may have clocked out for the night and gone home.
We ordered the house made tortilla chips and salsa and the burrata for apps. We probably got about 12 chips and about 1/4 c of salsa. The salsa was in a very small mason jar which made it hard to access. The burrata included a lot of pesto and relish, but only two pieces of bread and we were left with a LOT of leftover relish and pesto. I asked for more bread and it took about 15 minutes to get it. The service had the feeling of people "playing restaurant" whether the server or the busboy who continually tried to take plates at inopportune times during the meal... you know, the kind of situation where it feels strange, unpracticed and ill timed? It was that.
The cocktails we ordered were good. My friend had the Armadillo and I had The Business. They were tasty, but could not offset the consistently terrible service that tainted the overall experience.
Several of my friends ordered the halibut. $33 for a very small piece of fish. For that price, service MUST be on point! I liked the spring pea and strawberry salad with smoked trout but it still felt wrong to pay a total of $26 for an entree that felt like it could just as well be eaten somewhere with counter only service. My husband got the walleye sandwich. He's had these many other places and declared this one to be, "Not great." Specifically, very thin filet of fish, and a lot of very heavy slaw on top.
For dessert we ordered the house made ice cream. Again, a VERY LONG WAIT... for ice cream. The restaurant was almost empty by this time. When it came, my first thought was, "That's sorbet." In fact, it was sorbet, not ice cream. We tasted it anyway because we could not find the server to send it back. Two of the three flavors were unidentifiable. They just tasted gummy, or as my friend said, "Old, like the ice cream you find at the back of the freezer." We flagged down a server (at this point we were grabbing anyone who walked by our table) and asked for the ice cream. He brought back a very different selection, that was in fact, ice cream. The lavender was AMAZING but still not enough to make any of us every want to go back.
In reading the other reviews, it seems ninetwentyfive is simply not a solid choice. Will you get good food and service or not? It's a roll of the dice, which isn't what most of us want when going out and spending a good amount of money for a special occasion. ninetwentyfive is the kind of place you could go one time (only if you happen to be close by!), sit on the patio, have a cocktail then go to a different restaurant to eat.
We wanted to like it, but for a birthday dinner with a price tag of $320 (before tip) it left a bad taste in all of our mouths... kind of like the sorbet. read more