Do NOT come here if you have a party larger than 4 people.
This is the first bad review I've left on Yelp. I debated whether or not to write the review. I decided to write the review so future larger parties can make an informed decision whether to dine here.
We had reservations last Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. for a group of 9 for my friend's birthday dinner. Myself, the birthday girl, and one other girl arrived at 6:40 due to the train schedule. We checked in with the host. They brought us to our table right away. We sat there for ten minutes without anyone greeting us or even saying I'll be right with you. I saw one waitress walk by. I stopped her to see if we could get some service. She said our waitress would be right over. We waited another 5 minutes, 15 minutes total since we got there, for our waitress to stop by the table. She said she heard we were seated and she'd be right back. We waited 3-4 minutes and a different waitstaff member brought us some water. About 3-4 minutes later our waitress finally came back just to take our drink order. Based on the wait I went ahead and ordered an appetizer, bruschetta. We received our drinks a few minutes later. When the drinks arrived the girl next to me ordered another appetizer, crab cakes. Those were brought within reasonable time frame. My bruschetta wasn't included. We finished the crab cakes. About 10 minutes after that my bruschetta arrived. At that point I really didn't want it anymore. I don't understand what took so long. I didn't order anything complicated. All the kitchen had to do was chop up some tomatoes and put them on a piece of toast. I imagine the crab cakes were harder to make so I don't understand why those came out first.
We ordered dinner between 7:30-7:40. I live farther than the other girls so I had to leave earlier to catch my train. I scheduled an Uber to pick me up at 8:30 to take me to the train station. I informed the waitress of this at 8:00 just to request my tab so I could leave as soon as I was done eating. I assumed my food would be brought out shortly so I would have time to eat before leaving. We had already waited 20 minutes for our food. I never imagined it would take another 30 minutes. Boy, was I wrong.
At 8:15 the waitress just now brought the free bread that comes with the table. This was 45 minutes after we ordered and keep in mind we had been there since 6:40. My tab was already run. My $17 meal that I still didn't have was included on the bill. Another girl at the table was more frustrated than me and asked to see the manager. He wasn't apologetic or accommodating. All he said was the kitchen was backed up. I told him I already paid for my meal and I had to leave for a train. I asked for a refund. He wouldn't give it to me. Instead he ran to the kitchen and 5-10 minutes later be brought out my food in a bowl. I was astonished at this point. I told him I had to leave so why didn't he put it in a to-go container? He then had to run back to the kitchen to box up my food. I was already late to get in my Uber. Luckily the driver was nice and understanding. Finally the manager came back with my boxed up food. There were no utensils or napkins. How was I supposed to eat that on the train? Meanwhile, I'm leaving at 8:35 and my friends still didn't have their food. They ordered an hour ago and some had been there for almost 2 hours.
Once I finally was able to taste the food it wasn't very good. When I first saw the menu I was excited about it. It had a lot of delicious sounding dishes. I love spaghetti carbonara. I saw it in the menu. In the description it listed a 5 minute egg. I asked the waitress about this because normally the steaming pasta is dropped into a mug or bowl of egg yolks and the heat from the pasta cooks the egg. There isn't a whole egg on the side or on top. The waitress said you cut the whole egg on top and it oozes through. She said they do it because that's how they do it in Italy. Umm, NO! I lived in Italy for a summer. They don't do that at all (see a few sentences up regarding cooking method). Honestly, the spaghetti carbonara at the Cheesecake Factory is tastier and more authentic.
All in all, it was just a disastrous evening. I understand the kitchen was backed up. However, horrible service started from the very beginning when we had to wait 20-25 minutes to put in a drink order and get a water. That has nothing to do with a backed up kitchen. The section of the dining room we were in wasn't even at full capacity. There was at least one empty table (I can't remember if there more more) out of 11 total tables with 3 waitresses. It was Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. I get that's a busy time but if your restaurant can't keep up then consider changing a few things. read more