The low rating is entirely due to the service. The food itself was fine…read more
We were there today at noon and to our surprise and delight there were no people in line ahead of us so we were able to walk right up to the counter to order. We asked the first staff member that greeted us if there was a reservation for our party of 8 plus a baby and he said that they didn't take reservations and that it was first come first served. He did however advise us to move tables together to accommodate our party and to ask one of the staff members for help if we couldn't do it ourselves.
My husband started to move the tables while I put in our order at the counter with a second staff member, a lady with curly brown hair. In the middle of my order she interjected that we couldn't move tables on our own because it "violated their health policy" or something overly dramatic to that effect. I looked at her smiling and expecting it to be a joke but she was serious. Then I looked over her shoulder at the young man that had instructed us to move the tables inviting him to interject to clarify that he told us to move the tables but he did not. I later realized that he may be too scared of getting in trouble, and the rest of our experience made me wonder if the management here actively intimidates their staff into following strict, uncompromising, and irrational rules. Apparently while I was ordering, a third staff member, a blonde lady, came and scolded my husband while he was moving the tables and told him he wasn't authorized to move tables. The place was quite empty so it was odd that the two ladies were behaving so overly stressed and upset. My husband and I sat down and sort of giggled about how intense the two ladies were. At that point it was just comically dramatic behavior from them and a mild inconvenience to us.
Then the lady with the blonde hair came over and gave us an earful, again, about the health code and why only they can move tables and how they need to maintain walking zones, as if we had fought them on this or refused in any way. Also, for context, my husband had left about 6 feet of empty space on either end of the table, so her concerns did not appear justified. She moved the high chair from the end of the table where my husband had put it to the end of the table closest to the food prep window. Knowing my sister would need to sit next to the high chair with her baby, my husband and I got up and moved over to the other end of the table.
About two minutes later the curly haired lady came over and scolded us for having the high chair at the end of the table where her colleague had just put it. By now, I felt like we were on a candid camera show and the two ladies were playing a prank on us to see how many times they could tell us the same thing and move our table and chairs around before they got a reaction out of us. This was now the fifth time we were told about moving the tables and hassled about seating arrangement. My husband looked at the curly haired lady and asked her calmly but firmly, "Are you sure, this time, that this is where you want the chairs? I don't want to have you keep moving us." To my shock the curly haired lady looked at him and in the most passive aggressive tone and exaggerated expression said, "Are you OKAY?!" As if it were strange that my husband would ask an adult to make a decision and stick to it.
My husband and I would have left at this point and demanded our money back but we were expecting my sister and her family and my parents so we reluctantly had to stay.
A few moments later our food arrived, shockingly fast! (The best thing about this place is speed!) I got up to ask the two men preparing the food at the window if I could get an extra plate for sharing and the man that I asked looked bewildered and asked the other man, "Is that ok, can I give her a plate?" As though I had asked for something outrageous and out of the ordinary. The second man seemed annoyed and said begrudgingly that it was ok to give me a plate, and the first man immediately handed me a plate. It felt very much like a twilight zone episode where the walls of this restaurant housed a tiny dictatorship where there are staff members with power and staff members that are afraid of making the wrong decision and having to pay the consequences. All I could think is "yikes..."
When the rest of my party arrived we said nothing to them about our twilight zone experience to avoid ruining everyone's meal as ours was already ruined. This is one place we will never choose to go back to and that is unfortunate because this restaurant has so much potential to be excellent given the right, positive, management.
