A fine example of a good meal turned sour by bad business practices and lack of communication. Sad.
A group and I (six total) decided to come to the Rustic Wheelhouse for dinner on August 8th, 2017 after some searching for a restaurant in Chester. We were greeted by a very kind, tall young waitress and we got seated immediately after in the center of all the tables.
I think the decor was very cute, homey, and comfortable; the menus were small but that was fine, it's easier to choose something from a small menu and it's probably a good thing for the kitchen staff to not have to make 400 different recipes. Anyway, the waitress (wish I remembered her name) took our drink orders and we told her we were one person short and he would be arriving soon. After she took our drink orders, one of us at the table asked her, "If we get an entree, can we SUBSTITUTE the salad with a soup? Even if there is an up-charge that is ok." The waitress said yes, that would be possible. Great, we love French onion and one of the other group members wanted to try the tomato bisque soup on their specials menu.
Now, there are some key things that I picked up that our waitress said to us when we were waiting for that other person to order. One of the people at the table asked, "Since we are waiting for the other person, can we just put in what soup or salad we want while we wait?" Waitress says yes and we start to order the French onion soup, she says "ok did you want an entree with that? Or is that just to start you off?" We say, "no we want it WITH the entree, like as the side dish." Waitress says it'll be easier to wait for other person so it can all come out together, we think that's weird but we agree to wait.
Other person comes a few minutes after that conversation and we begin to order. Four of us (out of 6 people) get soup, two of us get the salad. As we are ordering our entrees, two of the people at the table order a steak entree, the waitress doesn't ask for what temperature we want it cooked to. One of us asks, "Can we tell you what temperature we want our steak cooked to?" The waitress responds in a whispered voice, "I don't know, I've never had anyone order a steak here before." ?????
Am I missing something? Is that a thing where people just get whatever temp the kitchen feels like cooking?
We passed this off as her being new and maybe a bit confused so the two who wanted steak just said medium rare and left it at that.
We get our soups and our entrees, we eat and talk to each other. All the while, there is someone who I assume is the manager (or the hostess) like butting in to our table every now and again? My boyfriend takes a picture of his entree and this manager is just standing RIGHT BEHIND HIM watching him take the picture. She also asks us questions and stuff I guess any manager would do? Maybe I'm over-exaggerating but I mean that's just weird, did she want to pull up a chair? Who was she??
We get the bill.... and ok... we were charged full price for the soup. Full price, not half, no like two dollar charge for the soup because we asked to substitute it in place of the salad. Nope, full price. We ask if there is a mistake, "No." the waitress says.
Of course, this doesn't fly and we try to jog her memory. "You said we could substitute it."
"No I didn't I said you could get that on the side of your entree."
??? One of the people at the table ask her if she is technically calling us liars, since we all heard her say we could substitute it.
Remember the manager? She comes over and says, "We don't do any substitutions! None at all!" So why doesn't it say that on your tiny menu? Could you not fit it? Was that not in the budget? Why did the waitress say we could?
She says there is nothing she can do, we have to pay full price for soups.
Personally I would have no problem with this if we also got a salad with our entree. If the entree comes with a salad, and we order a soup too, shouldn't we get the salad as well?
I feel like the waitress didn't want to admit her mistake to the manager because she was new, so she covered her butt by saying it was us who had lied to her.
We eventually talked the manager down into taking two dollars off each of our soups, she said, "Well now you know for next time!"
Yeah there will be no next time. Guilty waitress, we won't be back.
Update:
Tony D., the general manager, has responded but it seems he clearly did not read my review. The waitress told us before we place our order that we can make the substitution. You can't have the waitress saying one thing and then the manager saying another and we get called liars because of it. read more