Our experience at Savage Tavern was less than stellar.
I'd called around a few places to find somewhere that served mimosas and brunch on a saturday, and was delighted to find this new(ish) place right by campus. I even called ahead to see if they were busy and was told they had plenty of tables open.
We arrived shortly after, and found the place about half full, mostly students watching the game. We seated ourselves (there was no hostess) and waited for someone to acknowledge our existence. ....and waited ... and waited. There were several staff going back and forth, hanging out, chatting, and no one seemed to want to claim our table.
After about 15 minutes, I got up and asked a server for a menu. She looked surprised and gave me one, when I got back to my table I realised it was the wrong menu.
I was about ready to leave at this point, but shortly after, I watched the manager come over to the group of servers hanging out and point to our table, I was relieved thinking that we would soon get service.
I was incorrect. ANOTHER 15 minutes went by before anyone stopped by our table to take our order. We were finally able to get the correct menu.
By this time, the place had filled up, and we've been here 30 minutes with no service or drinks. We were able to order our first round, and our food. The drinks came fairly quickly, but our server didn't come back until long after they were finished. We ordered one more drink (there were two of us) and she walked away before we could order a second. At that point I couldn't be bothered. The blended mimosa was gross and 90% ice, but I guess that's my fault for expecting that a mimosa could be blended.
We waited about an hour for our food. Our server did apologise for the wait, but it was unsurprising given that we were finally able to place our order after the 20 other people who came in after us.
Our food finally arrived and we were starving. We had to ask our server for cutlery to eat with.
We ordered the breakfast tacos (tres amigos?) and they didn't have the avocado on them they were supposed to come with, and instead of hashbrowns were garnished with literally a crunched up tater tot. It tasted okay, but wasn't what we paid for. However, I knew that if we bothered to wait for our server we'd probably be waiting till we died of old age.
The stuffed french toast was decent, but the "fruit cup" we ordered on the side was honestly shocking. I cannot believe that someone from the kitchen would send it out. It was plated nicely, but I suspect it sat out in the kitchen for a long time, causing the apples to turn brown.
Overall, the food wasn't terrible but the service was shocking. Another half a star for the fact that the drinks were very reasonably priced and there was a good selection.
I'm a former server, so I give people a lot of slack on most things, but I also know when I'm being screwed. Had our server apologised for the wait, and been pleasant, Savage Tavern could have recovered from the earlier mishap, stuff happens!
Instead, the server who waited on us had a terrible attitude and treated us like we were carrying a particularly nasty strain of plague. It completely ruined our experience. I'm curious what was going on with management that morning, because obviously no one was watching the dining room. I can see by the menu that someone at Savage Tavern is putting in a lot of work and really trying to make the place succeed, but you really need to train your staff. Get a head server, a host, someone who can keep the floor organised when you get busy if you're planning on hosting regular dining hours AND special events at the same time. read more