I very rarely leave negative reviews or complain about service. In fact, I'm usually the person who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt and make the best of any situation. My husband and I were visiting Niagara Falls to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Neither of us had ever experienced the Falls before, and we specifically chose your restaurant because we thought combining the view with a nice dining experience would make our anniversary special.
When we arrived, the hostess was wonderful. She wished us a happy anniversary, and we were seated at a beautiful table with an excellent view. Unfortunately, the experience changed as soon as our server, Tracey, came to our table.
Almost immediately, she told us, "I've had a really long day and I'm ready for it to be over." I was honestly quite shocked to hear this from a server, particularly on our anniversary. I initially gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed perhaps she simply needed to vent and that the service would improve from there. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
We were left waiting for quite some time, and there was very little effort to engage with us, make recommendations, or make us feel welcomed. We wanted to start with bubbly to enjoy with our crab cakes, and ordered a bottle. It took approximately 45 minutes to arrive. We did not complain about the wait because we were there to enjoy ourselves and experience the evening, but what was particularly disappointing was watching our server repeatedly walk past our table and spend time speaking with other tables without checking in on us.
When we were finally able to get her attention again, we wanted to order a bottle of red wine to enjoy with our steak dinner. This was our wedding anniversary, and we were treating ourselves and were more than willing to spend money to have a special experience. Tracey told us that we were not allowed to order a bottle of red wine with our dinner. We explained that we had taken a cab and were not driving, but the response remained the same.
At that point, I was genuinely confused and very disappointed by the way we were being treated. I work in customer service myself and am someone who genuinely cares about creating a great experience for people. Throughout the evening, the impression we were given was that our server simply wanted us to finish our meal, pay, and leave.
Eventually, we decided that rather than allow the evening to become even more disappointing, we would leave and find somewhere else to continue celebrating our anniversary.
I'm sharing this directly because I believe you should know about our experience with Tracey. I'm not looking to cause trouble for anyone, and I understand that servers can have difficult days. However, telling guests that you are ready for your shift to be over, leaving them unattended for long periods, not checking in, and making them feel as though they are an inconvenience is not the experience we expected--especially for a special occasion.
I also want to be honest that we had originally planned to leave a generous tip because we were there to celebrate and wanted to enjoy the evening. By the end of the experience, we unfortunately did not feel that the service warranted one.
I hate leaving negative feedback, which is why I am choosing to contact you directly. I hope you will take this seriously and speak with Tracey about what happened. We were really looking forward to our anniversary dinner, and unfortunately, the service completely changed the tone of our evening. read more