(part 1) I'm not much of a reviewer, and I definitely never feel comfortable criticizing a restaurant, but sometimes an experience is so monumentally bad, you've gotta tell your story. Buckle up, because we're going on a long bumpy ride.
Let me start by explaining we were a group of 13 from CT in the area for a gymnastics meet. Our reservation was at 7pm, and we were hoping not to make it too long a night since we had a 90 min drive home.
We arrived to a very busy restaurant that seemed understaffed. Right then we should have run away, but once you've committed, you gotta see it through. We were seated at 3 tables separated by a foot or two so there were 4-5 people per table. We knew we were in trouble when it took a very long time to even be greeted and get a drink order in. A waitress, who shall be henceforth known as Cruella, finally came over to take our drink order. The friends at my table order water, and then she asked my son next for his. I said, could you please tell us what you have since no non-alcoholic drinks are on the menu? This is when I first realize that after 48 years on this earth, I'm about to experience one of the worst and meanest waitresses I've ever encountered. She gets this nasty tone and informs me the drink menu was right in front of me. I explain that there are only alcoholic beverages on the menu and my son is 12 so....she cut me off at that point and says, "yeah, okay, I got it!" super nasty like and starts rattling off drinks to my perplexed son. I lean over and ask him to just pick something. Feeling like this waitress has identified me as a Karen, I decide I'm going to try to show her I am anything but, and tell her my son will just take a Sprite and smile what I think is my nicest smile, but she clearly took as a sign that I'm a terrible person who must be treated like crap.
Sidenote: I'd already looked at the drink menu two days ago and knew going in I was going to get a can of Proclamation Derivative. I was looking forward to it after a long day of travelling and teenage gymnists....and I just love my beer.
So after taking my son's order she moves onto the next table. One of our friends orders the Proclamation Derivative, and it's at this point I realized she's totally skipped me. Then she asks my husband for his order, and he says he'd just like a water. I decide to speak up and say, "excuse me, but I didn't give you my order" and she immediately looks at me and says, "yes you did! You ordered water!" (Um, wut?) I explain again that I didn't actually order anything, and she insists again that I ordered a water. I said that I really didn't, but I would actually like a water along with the Proclamation Derivative. She responds, "you mean Ordinary Man?". I say no I mean Derivative. Then my friend explains it's on the can/bottle list. She says, very snottily, "you need to show me that". So my friend shows her, and at this point she seems beyond annoyed and says, "okay" and then proceeds to tell us she's not sure they have anymore of that. Even though I'm feeling very gaslit and flustered at this point I tell her it's fine and that if they don't have it, I'll just take Ordinary Man instead. I swear I usually pride myself on being a kind and patient person to be waited on, so I was feeling really upset about all this. But anyway, she gets the rest of the drink order and we knew we'd be in for a wait..... (I've run out of space and can't make a 2nd review so will post images of the rest). read more