Worst Restaurant Experience in Town? (Colorado Springs, Woodland Park: chapel, live, restaurants)

[Terytee]

We've had quite a few threads on good and unique restaurants here in town. What were some of your worst experiences here in town with service or the food?

I recently went to Judge Baldwin's downtown...big mistake. Never been there before. It was a Saturday evening, my buddy and I were 2 of perhaps 6 people in the place.

Service was incredibly slow.....even though the place was dead and the beer was very ordinary, especially for a place calling itself a microbrewery....I don't think they actually make the beer.

The food was actually not bad, it just took forever...an hour? You know how you just get a feeling that it's taking waay too long for your food and you start looking around??

Couple of cheeseburgers and an order of wings....c'mon. When we asked the waitress if there was a problem with our order, she said it was because we ordered our burgers well done...actually we hadn't ordered them that way, but that's how they showed up.

It doesn't take that long....especially when the place is nearly empty. Frustrating experience for a very ordinary meal. Won't go there again.

[froggin4colorado]

We tried (a couple of times) Red Lobster on S. Academy and repeatedly waited for food an hour. The last straw was when the waitress poured tea in DH's long island iced tea and when he tried to stop her to tell her it was a long island, she said "yea, and?" and continued to pour tea into it. He then took it to the bar to get it replaced and the bartender said "sorry" and wouldn't replace it. He went over to the manager and she did the same thing. Never again.

[Terytee]

Wow....good to know. It's a shame that today, when you have a great dining experience it's unusual instead of the norm.

[Maynerd]

Originally Posted by Terytee

Wow....good to know. It's a shame that today, when you have a great dining experience it's unusual instead of the norm.

You get what you pay for.

People go to chain restaurants, and come away surprised at less-than-stunning food and shoddy service. They avoid the Mom-and-Pop restaurants, which are often hidden gems. And, they aren't willing to pay for the outstanding restaurants, which leads to the demise of places like Palapas and Plate World Cuisine.

Go to the Broadmoor, or Blue Star, or Peppertree, or any of the other dozen excellent restaurants in town, and you will most certainly have a great dining experience. Go to a chain....Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Chili's.......and you get chain restaurant quality. Consistent, but unspectacular.

[bashep]

What is Blue Star? Never heard of it...

[PokerMunkee]

The Blue Star – an upscale Colorado Springs restaurant and catering service

I know some of the Plate staff are working there now.

[COflower]

Originally Posted by Maynerd

Go to the Broadmoor, or Blue Star, or Peppertree, or any of the other dozen excellent restaurants in town, and you will most certainly have a great dining experience. Go to a chain....Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Chili's.......and you get chain restaurant quality. Consistent, but unspectacular.

Fine and I love the Blue Star and Peppertree but that's way out of my budget. I haven't been to either with my own $. It's just not something I can afford. BTW, the Swiss Chalet up in Woodland Park have former chefs from the Broadmoor like the Peppertree and it's excellent but out of my budget.

As for the chain restaurants, decent value IMO. I've always had decent service and when something did go awry, they always have stepped up to the plate (hehe, no pun intended). I prefer to cook but chains aren't bad when you want sitdown service.

I've only had one restaurant experience I was pretty miffed about and that was Salsa Brava in Rockrimmon. I had to get up and get the attention of the waitress via the manager and the hostess two times. It wasn't a particularly busy night, just your average...she didn't even come by during the meal to see if we needed anything. Plus she had the personality of a turtle.

Now, that was several years ago and perhaps she was having a bad day but it was my birthday and while I don't expect people to treat me like a queen, especially if they don't know it's my birthday, I do expect good service even on the most mundane of days. I hope she got out of food service because that experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Obviously seeing as it still brings up my blood pressure.

But by and large, I've had average to great service in C Springs...heck, I've even had good service at fast food places! I guess part of it is the attitude I carry in with me because they are doing a job I would have a hard time doing so I try to be as cheerful with them as warranted...or something.

[719guy]

I agree with you there. I'm not a regular patron, but every now & then when I do fast food, the Sonic on woodmen & duryea has always been stellar, and they're a quick service chain. I'll stop there before I stop anywhere else in the same category. Olive Garden on N. Academy is also always very good to me. It's a shame about Plate though. I talked to Walter once with my GF (culinary arts student & she had to get info from him on Walter's Bistro for a project) and he recommended we try Plate out. Absolutely fantastic. What a shame.

[bigdummy3]

Perkins on platte and chelton. used to be good, dont know what happened to the place. took 45 minutes to get our breakfast. Then got criticized another time for asking why there was no cheese on my club sandwich. To top it off the manager was yelling at the staff in the back that "everybody grab something to stir something" or something of the sort. Very unproffesional and not something i wanted to hear.

[vlcreations]

I stay away from any restaurant in the Citadel area-the IHOP there is just filthy. Went there once about 8 years ago and the bathroom had **** on the walls. No soap in the dispensers. The Olive Garden up by Chapel Hills is 100% cleaner than the one by the Citadel. The whole area by the Citadel has gotten rundown.