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| - When your offering has to compete with the most expensive restaurants in Charlotte, you have to do things to make yourselves stand out. Wow customers with service, add some novel twist to your offering to make it special, provide incentives or some kind of special insider deal to make people feel like they're unique.... something.
We've eaten at Flemings a few times and every time I had been there, except for the most recent visit, I concluded pretty much the same thing. The service is exceptional. Every time. The food is good. Exceptional? no... but you're going to get good food. And the atmosphere was a great place to let loose and feel a bit swanky and modern at the same time.
This time all of it came crumbling down however. The service was average, the food remained good, but the atmosphere was drab and appeared to be struggling a bit for a Friday evening.
Our waiter just generally seemed uninterested. Yes, we had the scoop from an online sign-up for a $50/person lobster and filet deal. So I can see why a server would phone it in a bit, they must assume we're cheapskates who are just trying to get a deal and won't tip according to full menu prices. But after we ordered a couple rounds, a bottle of wine, additional appetizers, etc... he should have picked up on the potential. He was aloof, didn't give us full attention even when we asked him questions... just really sort of... Chevy when we expect Cadillac
Anyway you dice it, we were disappointed with what we had thought up until that experience, was the crowning value Flemings brought to the table, exceptional service. Without one of these three pillars (food, service, atmosphere) being better than their competitors, I struggle to justify dropping the time and cash to choose Fleming's over the dozen other options out there.
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