Pet Peeve #1 - When Yelper's give an establishment a bad review based solely on service issues alone without staying to eat. If you didn't even eat the food then are you really entitled to write a scathing review?
...knowing this...I'm about to piss myself off and break my own rule...because I'm going to do the exact thing I hate; as described above. Damn me.
My brother and I went out on a week night a while ago for some reverse happy hour grub, and just so happened to cruise by this place. Upon seeing the uber-cool iguana wearing sunglasses on the sign which instantly reminded me of those cool 80's IZOD shirts, we knew we had to stop. Sadly, upon entering the place just had this grimy look and feel to it, the kind of feel you get when you stop at a Dairy Queen in some one horse town on the way to Vegas. The experience that followed is summarized below:
-We park and enter the front door.
-There is no hostess or visible employee anywhere.
-We wait for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do.
-Still no employees around...we wander the whole place...and to our shock do not find a single waiter/waitress/hostess/bartender/cook anywhere.
-We go back to the front room, standing there confused about what we should do.
-Wait five minutes.
-Walk around again...still not a single employee of Iguana Macks to be found anywhere.
-Leave to find a better establishment...in this case...Applebees. (Which is saying a lot because I hate Applebees.)
...can someone explain how a restaurant/bar like this can be devoid of any/all employees around 10 o'clock? I was tempted to go and ask one of the inebriated bar patrons, but it just didn't seem worth the hassle. I would have liked to try Iguana Macks; but sadly wasn't given the chance. It shouldn't be a challenge to eat somewhere...an establishment should be courting you for your business, and this was the complete opposite.
Now the bigger question is this...where were the employees? Some of my theories:
-An all at once employee weed smoking break
-They were transported to an alternate timeline and are now living in a parallel universe where they work for a classier restaurant. Kind of like 'Lost' for wait staff.
-Employee Orgy
...eh, who knows...but I'm just not too jazzed about going back to try this place. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I didn't even have any of the food; that's saying something.