DINNER NEVER AGAIN- WHAT A RIPOFF!!
This is a great place for breakfast, so we decided to do dinner with some friends last night-what a mistake! My wife had a special birthday and it was pretty much ruined by the dinner.
Corkage fee- A whopping $35 per bottle if you were to bring your own wine and this place wasn't that nice to command such a price. I looked online at their wine list ahead of time and was not impressed by the depth or the selections (a bottle of cheap Fetzer sold for $44!), so I brought my own wine. I made it a point to talk to the manager upon our arrival to tell her that it was a special birthday dinner, and whatever she could do regarding the corkage fee of $35 per bottle would be appreciated. As usual, I also offered her a glass to pour some of the wine for herself. I was very surprised to see, at the end of the meal, that the full $70 was charged for the two bottles. When I asked the server if she had talked to the manager, she said yes, there was nothing the manager could do about the fee. Not knowing how much corkage we were going to be charged, the special champagne was opened and poured by the manager, but no ice bucket was offered, Not wanting to push my luck and thinking the corkage fee would indeed be reduced, I went ahead and opened and poured the Pinot Noir myself for the meal. If I had known we were going to be charged that much for corkage, I would've let them do all the work.
"European Portions" - We started with a an appetizer, and there were four of us, but the server only brought three pieces of bread. We had to ask for more bread, which was very strange. We then ordered some salads and were told the portions would be "European portions", and the salads would be small, however, we quickly found the salads were very large and we could've easily split them. (The group that sat next to us must have been privy to this knowledge because their server gave them a different kind of bread and they split their salads, maybe even splitting their meals, but we weren't sure.) The meals were fine as expected. They did bring a birthday dessert for my wife and we ordered additional desserts for the table.
Bill Charges- All of us were very disappointed that the manager was unable or unwilling to reduce the corkage fee and the server seemed like she was more interested in running up our tab ($400 for four of us, including tip), than providing us a good meal. We all left very dissatisfied (considering the price we paid) and vowed to post an unsatisfactory review. read more