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| - Yikes, it's fitting that this is a seafood spot, because this restaurant is a sinking ship.
My coworker was hungry and wanted some soup, so I agreed to go to lunch with her. We arrived at around 12:30 on a Tuesday, the parking lot was half full.
We were greeted right away, and shown to our booth. A friendly server greeted us and took our drink orders. Coming back with the drinks, the server (Allison, I think?) did a good job of explaining the menus, showing us the specials etc. The server provided a really good impression that things were going to be very good.
My friend and I ordered lunch, she ordered the salad/soup combo and I ordered the breaded shrimp lunch (way to branch out, I know...) Our server brought us some tasty rolls, and was quick to refill our drink glasses. After about 25 minutes, our server again came over to check on us, and it looked like she was surprised to see the absence of plates on our table. The server returned to our table with more rolls and told us it would be a few more minutes.
My friend commented that it had taken forever for our food to arrive, and I could not disagree with her. I could see a long delay if we ordered some intricate dish, which was complex and required time (calzones, etc) but soup is already made, salad is just lettuce and dressing, and my entire lunch required mere minutes in a deep fryer.
About ten minutes later our lunches arrived, and we were both truly puzzled as to what could have possibly taken so long. The place was not full at all, so it wasn't that the kitchen got overwhelmed- I really don't know the disconnect.
I do not blame the server for the kitchen having epic failures. I do wish she would have stopped by and acknowledged the issue. Tell me anything:
"Hey, the kitchen lost your order, they're making it now."
"Sorry, there was a knife accident in the kitchen, and they needed your order slip to stop the bleeding."
"Sorry, I got busy and forgot to put in your order."
"Hey, I am not sure what is going on, but it is odd that you don't have lunch still."
ANYTHING. Just communicate. Clearly there is an issue if we have been to lunch for nearly an hour and still do not have lunch.
Ironically (TRUE STORY ALERT), an elderly couple using a walker to get around was seated after us, and ate, paid, and left BEFORE we got our lunch. It reminded me of the movie Office Space, it was great. When it came time to pay the bill, we made it a point to tip 25%, we were pretty sure that if others had as slow a lunch as we did, diners would mistakingly ding the server, when it was a kitchen issue.
In conclusion, as we got to the parking lot my peer told me she would never return, and sadly I had to agree. It's a weird thing when you remove a restaurant from your future rotation, but it had to happen. It is not cool to take an hour and a half to have a 'quick lunch' mere minutes from the office.
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