Wow did this place ever go downhill, in addition to directly defrauding/decepting our group! I was excited to bring some friends to this place for dinner, as I had been here probably 8 times over the years and had no issues. Unfortunately I was very embarassed having my friends go through this experience and will absolutely never return. See why below.
Time of visit: Weekend evening, it was not very busy inside. In fact they immediately seated 6 of us. We could see multiple employees standing around. Bussers were playing rock paper scissors to see who should have to clean up a table, etc. They did not seem overwhelmed.
Service: The server seemed very irritated with us being there and was kind of rude with taking our order, it felt 'off' from the start. Our water ran out pretty quickly but was eventually refilled by the bus staff. Our food orders all came out at different times which didn't make sense given the quality (see below), and had items completely missed. We had to ask several times for help with getting takeaway boxes and even the check, since we didn't see our waiter ever again after ordering. Only the bussers. I'll add specific content on "paying" below, since that's a huge part of this rating. A table next to us was getting highly irritated at how hard it was to get any server's attention. I watched her eventually just get up from her seat and go manually ask the guy for her check.
Cleanliness: Both the metal cups used for water and my plates were still dirty. This is not how it was in the past. I had to scrape flakes of old food off of my plate to use it. And the cups were still wet and did not look clean, either from being pulled quickly out of the dish washer or from previously being used (hoping not the latter, but I wouldn't put it past them after this).
Food Quality: My fried Chicken 65 was good. My curry (Butter Chicken) was cold, and tasted old. It also had literally no flavor as it has had in the past and neither did the Biryani we ordered. I should taste the spices, there were none. The plain naan was somehow wet? People at the table also complained that their food was old tasting, and cold. I ended up getting sick off of this meal, both an upset stomach and a headache, and unfortunately tossed the entire bag of leftovers (of which I took home probably 70% of what I ordered).
Paying: We had to ask a busser to help us pay, or to help get our check, after sitting there for over 30 minutes with no one even checking in. They did immediately go get someone, phew. A guy did not bring out our check however. Instead, he showed up with a credit card machine. When going to pay, he said "we included the gratuity", told me to mark "zero" on the tip amount, and would not show us the itemized actual receipt. I thought this was a little odd, but assumed it must be one of those auto included things when you have a table of 6 or something. Where an appropriate tip amount would be 18-20% from the restaurant selection. Even with regrettably awful service and bad food. I swiped my card, and signed, hoping I'd see the details after. But I didn't. So instead, I took a look at their menu, pulled up my items, added the tax, and calculated the amount they put in as a tip. THEY TIPPED THEMSELVES 35%!!! So not only bad food, but bad service, they had the deceptive audacity to sneak themselves a 35% tip. That's unbelievable and unacceptable. I wonder how many people don't notice this happening there. While it's only probably $5-10 per table, it's theft. And fraud. Trust me, fighting this crap has been my career for 20 years.
This experience triggered a memory that I had completely forgotten about at a partner location under the same ownership from about 8-10 years ago (Saffron Valley). Where I paid for a $10 buffet, and the guy added an additional $5 to my charge (after I added my own tip) by manually using the CC machine. I caught him, and called it out on the spot, as well as wrote to the owners about it. Where they ensured this would never happen again. Well, years later, at a new location, it did happen again. And it tells me it's a top down issue. Making it easy enough for me to never give any of their locations another shot. read more