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| - I have mixed feelings about our experience at the Spice Box last Friday. This is a restaurant run by the students studying hospitality, nutrition, food science, and business. It's run out of Bevier Hall which is the same location as Bevier Cafe which has pretty high reviews. When I called the number to make a reservation, nobody answered so I left a message. By the end of the next day, nobody had called me back, so I called again. Still nobody answered so I sent an email. It came time for the night of the dinner and I still hadn't heard from anyone. So, we decided to just show up. It's definitely the kind of place that you need to make a reservation to get seated but they sat us anyway considering the circumstances. It was cuban night so the restaurant had decorations and music to match. We waited for a good 15 minutes and nobody even came to offer us water, let alone beverages. Finally the manager for the evening greeted us. He was very friendly and nice but we hadn't even gotten water, I wasn't in the mood to hear his inspiration for the dinner. I'll admit, I was probably too short with him. I cut him off and immediately asked for water. He then realized that we probably hadn't seen a server yet so he sent someone over to take our drink and dinner orders. There does seem to be some lag time between ordering alcoholic beverages and receiving them so, keep that in mind. Most of the food was really good! The chicken was very tender, yet cooked through. The appetizers were super yummy. One dish, the shrimp, was really dry and tough. They had either made the novice mistake of over cooking the shrimp or it was left under heat lamps for way too long. That was a pretty serious disappointment. So, all in all, I'll probably come back. I imagine that each night has a different manager, servers, and cooks. I'm hoping that we came on an off night. This is a restaurant run by students who seem to have little experience of what a real dining experience is supposed to be like. I don't have a bachelor's in hospitality but I've worked in enough restaurants and eaten out enough that I know what people expect. I hope it's not that disorganized for every meal.
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