| rev:text
| - Up until about 5 years ago, I lived in the neighbourhood and would come in almost weekly to Fiore's with friends. The pasta specials were great, the service was good, and it had a nice, casual atmosphere.
Then I moved out of the neighbourhood, but every time I came back, my experience at Fiore's got a little bit worse - until tonight sealed the deal - I won't ever be coming back.
My partner and I came in at about 9-ish. There was a party of about 6-8 girls who were finishing up, and two two-tops in the restaurant. We were seated with nary a word but, "You can sit where you want" - no specials, no nothing. Yes, we got to sit where we wanted, but we got to sit there for a LONG time before anyone bothered to take an order.
There appeared to be 3 people on shift - the woman who seated us, a woman who was clearing the tables around us, and a male waiter.
The girl clearing tables came by us twice - totally ignored us. Another couple came in, she sat them, gave them a rundown of specials, and offered water. Then she went and helped a fellow who placed an order to go. She came by us a third time... now going on 15 minutes, and I managed to ask if anyone could take our order.
The male waiter came over finally, and by that time we were more than ready to order food and drinks. And then we waited for food, and waited, and waited some more. He came back twice to double check about what I wanted on my noodles. Apparently "the lemon sauce" meant "mix lemon sauce with pomodoro" to whomever was working in the kitchen. I wasn't sure where the confusion was.
Finally we got our meals. I had a plate of cold pasta and chicken that had either gone off or was undercooked - or both. It was grey and pink - it tasted - and looked - absolutely unappetizing. Even my partner commented on it.
Our waiter never returned to check on us. My partner had finished his penne and I had taken two bites of chicken and two bites of pasta when the waiter returned and cleared our plates. I literally could not force down this awful food.
Know this about me: if a meal is even remotely palatable, I will choke it down and say it was fine. I hate making a scene or being an inconvenience as a customer. But I simply could not in good conscience say that meal was fine tonight. So when our waiter asked how the meal was, I told him honestly that the chicken was quite obviously off and undercooked. He apologized and said he could have the kitchen make me something else. That wasn't something I really wanted to wait for - or subject myself too - even further, so I said no thank you, assuming he would comp the meal or at least give us a discount - again, I'm just not the type to demand a discount, and it's the obvious thing a restaurant would do in this case.
He cleared the meal and took my plate to the two girls working - one of whom I'm assuming is the manager? Customer service obviously being top priority there, she exclaimed within earshot, "No, it looks fine!" after the waiter (I'm guessing) asked if there was anything he could do for us.
He returned with the bill and as my partner was paying, again asked what was wrong with the chicken. I told him again. He said he could check if his manager would comp it - but by that time the credit card had been approved and I just wanted to get out of there, I was just so disgusted with the whole experience - especially with the behaviour of the manager.
I've been working in the service industry for almost 20 years. Even in the crappiest restaurant I've ever worked at, if you're clearing an almost full plate of food when a customer is done their meal, then something is very obviously wrong with their meal and you do your best to fix it. You do not talk about your customers returning food - or about your customers at all - ESPECIALLY within earshot. You offer them another food option or you comp the meal. Simple as that. Though our waiter was very friendly and somewhat apologetic - we should have been checked on within the first few minutes of receiving our food and avoided this altogether - the restaurant was nearly empty, there was no excuse for us being left unattended for as long as we were.
Sorry Fiore, we had some good times in the past, but I won't be coming back.
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