Community Update

My mom and I ventured in
on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We love to support local businesses and recently
saw the spot on restaurant.com. This typically means businesses are trying to
build clientele.

When we entered, we were
not greeted with a smile, a "Hello" or even "Can I help you?” A
woman who appeared to be the owner only from process of elimination,
certainly not her appearance huffed past us and asked if we had a reservation.

The website does
recommend reservations but does not require them. Being in the restaurant
business and owning a small business myself, if we were kindly told we could
not be accommodated without a reservation, I would have certainly understood.
However, being in the business, I cannot understand not wanting to represent
one's business well, providing great and personable service as this is a
service industry or not wanting to encourage as much business as possible
(especially in this economy) .

When I replied that I
did not have a reservation, the woman then actually threw the tableware on the
table, and knocked on it, saying "You can go here, we do close at
2:30" in a scolding manner. To be honest, I hadn’t been spoken to that way
since I was in Catholic School and Sr. Mary caught me passing notes. It was
1:45 at that time and please note my mother and I dined and paid our check by
2:20.

I was going to leave at
that point but the one saving grace was the young girl who appeared to be the
owner's daughter. She was quirky and inexperienced but at least smiled and
attempted to be personable.

Overall she was attended
to us and personable for most of the meal.

When we ordered there
were several things on the menu not available. When I presented my
restaurant.com certificate, I was told it was not acceptable during the holiday
season. This was an outright lie as I deal with restaurant.com both as a
consumer and business owner. I followed up with them as well and they confirmed
this was not accurate.

During our meal and
after requesting our check, the young girl was more concerned with
setting the tables and preparing for the next day of service. The
owner stomped about the store not making eye contact, smiling or ever coming to
our table and asking how our meal was. Something that an owner would always do
especially when only 2 tables are occupied.

The meal was very
disappointing. Nothing we could not have whipped up from the contents of
our fridge after a long stretch of not grocery shopping. It was more like a
brown bag lunch.  While spending $40 on lunch is not outrageous for
us, we could have had better at the local diner (we has a small salad, a sandwich
and 2 teas).

 Instead of thanking us as we finally received
our check, the young girl told us that we were lucky to have gotten in. We
were then told we would just have to come back if we wanted to use the
certificate.  Even at a 5 star restaurant in the city on a busy Saturday,
I would have had a better treatment without a reservation.  We will not be
back.