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We've recently started eating out every couple of weeks at what goes for a high end restaurant in my town. The restaurant business is dead here in the winter, so we use it as an opportunity to try out new places.
We had early reservations for last night. They seemed to have lost the reservation but gave us a table in the lounge after an arguing couple vacated it. Service was pretty slow. We waited a long time to place our order. Starters came out quickly, but the entree took quite a while, maybe half an hour. They were busy, so neither of us really thought much of it. Desserts came with no forks, so we had to wait a few minutes before we could start eating them. It all added up to two hours.
The check arrived and we paid immediately. The hostess came up to us as soon as we'd finished paying and asked us to leave so some other people could have the table. My BF was still drinking his cognac, but he swallowed it down and we took off. The two people who were waiting did look like they had been there a while. Maybe they would have been less annoyed if someone had given them free drinks while they waited.
The whole thing really irritated me. We were not being slow about eating but the way the hostess told us to leave made it sound like we were naughty children. If she had waited five minutes, we would have been out of there. We were not the ones dragging out the evening - the restaurant was with their long wait times and general disorganization.
I don't blame you for not wanting to go back. Higher end restaurant, reservations, just from those I am going to assume $25 to $35 per meal, if not more, plus apps and drinks. If I were in your shoes, I'd have demanded the manager on the way out to inform him/her of the disgraceful manner you had been treated with. It may have been an off night for them, but to treat one's customers like that is just wrong.
Personally I wouldn't let Valentine's Day taint your opinion on the restaurant. It was Valentine's Day and a Saturday evening. Those two combinations often spell disaster. If I were the restaurant, I would have asked if I could purchase you another drink at the bar so they could turn over your table.
She could have given us five minutes after paying the bill to finish drinks. The second he put down the pen, she was at the table asking us to leave. It was like 'We collected your $200, so time for you to go.' We were already eating our meal in the lounge/bar area.
My boyfriend suggested that she thought we were lying about having reservations in the first place, which seems plausible given the way she spoke to us at the end of the meal. I also think they may have overbooked - there was a blizzard predicted, so a lot of people were canceling reservations. The snow started later than expected.
Whatever the problems they had that night, the way she spoke to us was extremely rude. She wasn't apologetic about asking us to leave, losing our reservation, or the slow service. She talked to us like we were monopolizing the table and sitting in someone else's seat. She could have told us when she sat us that the table was free until X time and we would have skipped the after dinner dessert and drinks.
I am sorry to hear that your Valentine's dinner had such an ending. Have you considered contacting management (use non-peak times to call)? We had a similar experience a while back and management made up for it.
This is why we don't eat out on holidays anymore. Things like this happen a lot. It's just too crazy in the restaurants.
Exactly. Don't go to any restaurant on Valentines Day, any brunch place on Mother's Day, or any Bar on New Year's Eve.
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That's what I said
