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So my family and I went out for dinner tonight to a very good seafood place about ten minutes away from where we live. We knew and expected Seafood Place to be busy, and it was. We had no problem with that, or the fact that the kitchen was very backed up.
Our reservation was for 6:45, we got there at that time, give or take a few minutes. Waited another five for our seat. Again, no problem there. We get our table, order some calamari, drinks all around (mocha martini for Mom, Manhattan for Sis, some scotch for Dad, a beer for Yours Truly), soup and salad, and then our meals.
We finally left by 10:00. The manager went by about three times, to check up on us, inform us of the wait, and apologize for it. He even went so far as to write off our appetizers and first round of drinks, so he gets major props for that.
The major sucky bit was our waitress. There were servers going around to all the other tables in our vicinity like crazy, taking out more bread, refilling water, checking up on their customers, etc. Our waitress was considerably more absentee. And when she was in our vicinity, she seemed to be focusing her attention on the party of eight seated at the table next to us (party of four), and thus it was hard to get her attention to ask for a refill on the water.
The food was excellent, no complaints there. But it would have been nice if our waitress had paid a bit more attention to us, or indeed, if she'd come through the area more often than she did, like her colleagues were doing.
I understand how difficult it must be for the waitstaff on days like this: Christmas Eve, the entire restaurant is packed, the kitchen is working as hard and as fast as they can (and still get managers like the one we spoke to, who joked to us "I'm going to go see if I can't yell at a couple of the chefs"), and you're running around like crazy to see to everyone. I get it, and I sympathize, really.
The dinner was great, it was good to get the chance to have dinner as a family (since I usually work evenings, and Sis lives in St. Louis while she goes to law school), and the time between courses let us chat and digest and pace ourselves. Just the waitress was a little bit more absentee than she should have been.
Our reservation was for 6:45, we got there at that time, give or take a few minutes. Waited another five for our seat. Again, no problem there. We get our table, order some calamari, drinks all around (mocha martini for Mom, Manhattan for Sis, some scotch for Dad, a beer for Yours Truly), soup and salad, and then our meals.
We finally left by 10:00. The manager went by about three times, to check up on us, inform us of the wait, and apologize for it. He even went so far as to write off our appetizers and first round of drinks, so he gets major props for that.
The major sucky bit was our waitress. There were servers going around to all the other tables in our vicinity like crazy, taking out more bread, refilling water, checking up on their customers, etc. Our waitress was considerably more absentee. And when she was in our vicinity, she seemed to be focusing her attention on the party of eight seated at the table next to us (party of four), and thus it was hard to get her attention to ask for a refill on the water.
The food was excellent, no complaints there. But it would have been nice if our waitress had paid a bit more attention to us, or indeed, if she'd come through the area more often than she did, like her colleagues were doing.
I understand how difficult it must be for the waitstaff on days like this: Christmas Eve, the entire restaurant is packed, the kitchen is working as hard and as fast as they can (and still get managers like the one we spoke to, who joked to us "I'm going to go see if I can't yell at a couple of the chefs"), and you're running around like crazy to see to everyone. I get it, and I sympathize, really.
The dinner was great, it was good to get the chance to have dinner as a family (since I usually work evenings, and Sis lives in St. Louis while she goes to law school), and the time between courses let us chat and digest and pace ourselves. Just the waitress was a little bit more absentee than she should have been.
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