New York, New York. Center of the universe. New York is home to some of the world’s best entertainment, fashion, and restaurants. One warm summer night we stumbled across a beautiful restaurant hidden in the SoHo borough. I was excited to eat at a local restaurant and have a taste of real New York food. The quaint patio that overlooked a park was complete with an abundance of white market lights and a jazz band. The restaurant drew a hip local base and well dressed out of towners. I could not wait to sit outside, soak up SoHo, and people watch.
First off, let me say that by no means am I a snob or a difficult customer to please. When we discovered a trendy restaurant called The Place I had high hopes. The Place served American, Mediterranean, and organic cuisine. Upon entering the restaurant we were greeted by a friendly host who happily accommodated our five person party. We were seated at a table that was so small it was uncomfortable. We were basically sitting on top of each other. The table we were seated at was right in the pathway of the waiters. Waitresses kept walking by our table knocking into us and making snide remarks about how we were in the way. A waitress purposely bumped in our table to show her annoyance because we were in her way. She yelled and cursed at the host in front of us for seating us in such an inconvenient location. We felt extremely uncomfortable, unwelcome, and in the way.
After the waiter took our order and brought us our drinks the manager came up to our table and asked us if we would mind moving to another table. Although it was a pain to move we were almost relieved because of how rude the staff was being to us. We had to pick up our own drinks, menus, and carry them to our new table. Not to mention the menu had typos and misspelled words. Our new table was located in the back of the restaurant which ended up being a sports bar. I was beginning to get annoyed because the reason we chose this restaurant was for the patio, music, and hip atmosphere. We were sitting at a less than average sports bar with unclean rickety tables. The tables in the front had nice clean white table cloths but in the back portion of the restaurant the tables with bare. The silverware was wrapped in a paper towel instead of rolled nicely in a cloth napkin. Major downgrade. The back of the restaurant was literally the complete opposite of the front of the restaurant. It looked similar to Buffalo Wild Wings, decorated with sports memorabilia and televisions. Although the back of the restaurant was a less than average version of the front the food still cost the same.
After being relocated to the back of the restaurant we waited for over 15 minutes before our new waiter decided to grace us with his presence. Our waiter pulled up a chair and sat down at our table to ask us if we were ready to order. Not only did he sit down with us he was unsuccessfully hitting on all of the girls at our table. He had the guts to try out a pathetic pick up line on my friend. He asked her “do you believe in love at first sight?” Before she could respond and then he chimed in with, “or should I walk by again?” Was he serious? At this point my patience is beginning to run out. Finally he took our order and I was hoping things would run a little bit smoother. I should not have gotten my hopes up because things only went downhill from there.
While we waited for our food I had to use the restroom. I have been told that you can always judge how clean a kitchen is by how clean the bathroom is. When I entered the bathroom I was repulsed. The stalls were dirty; there wasn’t any toilet paper or soap. It smelled like a bar bathroom in a college town. I wanted to take a hot shower and sanitize myself after I left the bathroom.
After what seemed like forever our food was finally brought out. After we ate our appetizer and our empty plates sat on our table and no one came to pick them up. I was so hungry I could have eaten my own arm. Not only was our food slow to come out they got my order wrong. I ordered a hamburger and they brought me a cheeseburger and I hate cheese. It was also cold and tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a long time. At that point I didn’t care because I was starving. Halfway through dinner my friend let out a gasp because she found a hair in her pasta. I wanted to barf. Unfortunately we weren’t surprised that something like that could happen.
After eating a cold and unsatisfying meal our waiter was nowhere to be found. It would have been easier to hail a cab at rush hour then find our waiter. He probably was out taking a smoke break. My friend had to get up from our table and walk to the front of the restaurant to ask someone to bring us our check. Finally, after what seemed like forever our waiter returned with our checks. The checks were all incorrect and mixed up. We tried to make it as simple as possible for him by breaking down the check and writing our names next to our meals. The waiter sat back down at our table and proceeded to ask me if he could borrow my cell phone to calculate the check. He could not figure out how to divide the check so I had to do it for him. I did not think it was possible for someone to be worse at math than I am but I was wrong. This ordeal lasted close to 10 minutes. I felt bad for his other tables that weren’t getting any attention.
It is not every day that you have an awful dining experience and I usually don’t complain about service unless it is horrible. And it was. After ruining every part of our meal and experience, I expressed my annoyance to the waiter. Looking back I probably should have asked the manager for a new waiter in the beginning. The service was so abominable it overshadowed the bland food. There is nothing more that I hate than leaving an expensive meal hungry and dissatisfied. Long story short I left hungry, dissatisfied, and left my friends number for the waiter as a prank.
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