Restaurant and Server Reviews

This page is inspired by a 3-week streak of bad service and bad restaurants.  Fortunately there are more than just a few restaurants in our area and I’ll have plently to write about.    Updates will be as often as I’m inspired.  God save the servers!! 

Episode 3

Date of Occurence:  April 22 (my birthday lunch)

Restaurant:   Pizaa hut Bistro (Mission area)

Server:  unknown (I really gotta get better about getting their names)

Meal:  Lunch

  We waited approximately 8 minutes for a server to greet us and take our drink order.  My hub received a flat root beer and the server asked me if I wanted cheese (note: parmesean) on my (American) salad.  Why would I want an Italian style cheese on a clearly American style salad.  The salad itself remained untouched.  The tomatoes were soggy and the lettuce was wilted.  However, THE RANCH WAS COOL!  (HALLELUJAH)  When the food arrived we noticed something about both our dishes:  the pasta was burnt and crispy.  Hub ordered cavatini and in the end it tasted and looked like really bad choriqueso.  Yes, I know, gross.  Though the server offered me cheese on my salad, he didn’t offer us cheese for our pasta.  Servers:  please realize the appropriate times to offer fresh cheese and pepper.  I do have to say though that the spagehtti at Pizza Hut was better than the spagehtti at Ristretto (not even a proper name for the place any more might I add).  The sauce itself was actually savory and the meat didn’t have a very heavy feel to it.  Nevertheless, our server offered us no refils until we asked him.  And the cherry on top was that he provided no pen for the credit card slip.  Unfortunatley this was a better day at this restaurant than most others.  I frequent this place because it is close to work and a sit down meal.  But the service is consistently bad. 

Food:  ♦♦  (out of 5)

Service:  ♦ 1/2 (out of 5)

Overall:  ♦ 3/4 (out of 5)

 Episode 2

 Date of Occurence:  April 17 (ish)

Restaurant:  Ristretto (Edinburg) aka The Coffe House Graveyard (left behind by David Salinas)

Server:  Unknown, but he’s the guy with the ponytail and the goofy smile

Meal:  Dinner

     Let me se the scene:  6 tables are sat (including ours); there are 2 server kiosks; it’s 8:00 in the evening in Edinburg and a total of 2 servers are working the floor.  Already this is a bad scenario.  I literally watched one server take a drink order from a 5-top and then saw 2 SERVERS bring them their drinks.  It took 2 SERVERS 2 TRIPS to bring a 5-top their drinks!  (Ever heard of trays or holding more than 2 glasses at a time?!)  We watch other tables get ignored as we wait for our server to come and greet us and take our drink order.  My hub takes a look at his watch and says, “How much longer you wanna give ‘em?”  I say, “Eh…3 minutes.”  Lucky for them they showed up within about 2.

     So we order our drinks and I order a soup to start off with.  No Soup.  So we order an appetizer-Caprese.  (A caprese is basically 3 large tomato slices with delicious slices of fresh mozarella chesse atop and drizzled in olive oil, spices, and olives.  A rather delicious start to a meal…not too heavy at all.)  Eventually our drinks find their way to our table (via 1 server  ::GASP::).  We place our order and my dinner plate comes with a salad and I ask for ranch dressing; Hub takes a potato soup.  Both of these turned out to be bad choices.  The soup was runny and it seemed like the only spice the chef liked that night was pepper.  (::PEPPER!!!!!::  close friends, I refer you to the memory of Lulu).  And get this, my ranch dressing was HOT.  It wasn’t sexy or anything, it was HOT.  My salad was colder than the dressing.  There is almost nothing worse than lukewarm to hot dressing for a cool salad.  I couldn’t eat it, but the hub did.  So our sald and soup came out but where was our Caprese?  So my hub asked the server to please check on our appetizer.  Our server said, and I quote:

          “Wha-theeeey-ummm-Why didn’t they bring it out to you?”   (looking directly at my hub)

Yes, the man actually asked us if we knew why our appetizer wasn’t there.  ::Blink, Blink::

When our appetizer had gotten there and we finished it, our food was still running EXTREMELY LATE.  Now, some people may be saying,”Okay, this girl is just too picky.”  But the fact is if you’re going to pay a restaurant money to serve you good food and a tip for your server they should be going above and beyond the call of duty.  When the food came, it was bad.  Well, at least my spagehtti was bad.  The auces was runny and didn’t even cling to the pasta.  The “secret ingredient” that the Ristretto claims to put in it needs to be left out and exchanged for something else.  Oh wait…never mind-the chef will just use pepper.  The hub’s lasagna was apparently tolerable because he didn’t seem to complain too much.  Except for the over-cheesiness. 

     When we were ready to leave we gave him our card right when he brought the ticket because we weren’t sure when we were going to see him next.  We had sat there and watched bad serving all night.  The fact is that a single server from Chili’s or Applebee’s could have worked that entire floor that night and made the people happier than both those guys put together.  I believe that The Ristretto needs to get some experienced servers in there to train up the guys and then let them roll.  Perhaps the first class should be on carrying the appropriate amount of drinks. 

Food:  ♦♦  (out of 5)

Service:  ♦♦  (out of 5)

Overall:  ♦ 1/2  (out of 5)

Episode 1

  4/20/08

Restaurant:  Denny’s (Edinburg)

Meal:  Breakfast

Server:  Unknown  (but definetley a new guy)

  I walked in and they sat me pretty quick.  As I waited for the rest of my party, no one came to greet me or ask me for a drink order.  I waited at least 4 minutes.  Not too bad considering the overall bad service I have been getting lately.  When the server did arrive he misheard several of our drink orders even after he repeated them back to us.  Eventually, he brought us our drinks and took our orders.  This is when it got weird.  He takes my father’s order; here’s how it goes:

 Dad:    “I’ll have a Grand Slam.”

Server:  “How would you like your eggs?”

Dad:  “Over easy”

Server:  “With pancakes?”

        AKWARD SILENCE AS WE ALL LOOK AT EACH OTHER

          UMMM….WHAT???  DID HE JUST ASK IF HE WANTS PANCAKES WITH HIS GRAND SLAM THAT COMES      WITH PANCAKES???

         OH NO….HERE WE GO…

Dad:  “Um, doesn’t it come with pancakes?”

Server:  “Oh, yeah!  huh huh…  What can I get for you?  (to stepmom)

Stepmom:  “I’ll have a Grand Slam with bacon–crisp please.”

Server:  “What?”

Stepmom:  “CRISP.  I want my bacon crisp.”

Server:  “For you ma’am?  (to me)

Me:  “I’ll have the Belgian Waffle Platter.  All bacon”

Server:  “How would you like your eggs?”

Me:  “It doesn’t come with eggs.”

Server:  “Oh!  huh huh.  You know the menu better than I do.”

So yeah, that wasn’t weird.

The food comes and the bacon is ABSOLUTELY TASTELESS!  Literally, I have never had bacon that bad.  It has ZERO FLAVOR!  The butter is well, let’s just never eat the butter at Denny’s.  It’s another life-form that never goes bad.  And the food is well, less than average.  They advertise their breakfast is better than your average fast food joint, but frankly I could have had a Whataburger BOB and been far more satisfied. 

When we get up to pay (BTW: our server brought our check with our meal-very bad server habit), my dad gives them a $50 and the lady totally walks away with his money.  So we wait around for her to come back and she finally does and as she is giving my dad his chane she is totally talking to someone else.

FOOD RATING:  ♦  (out of 5)

SERVICE RATING:  ♦♦  (out of 5)