| rev:text
| - I hate to be the first to review this with such a negative rating, unfortunately opening day did not do the place justice. I understand that opening on a Friday night has its perks - lots of business, great way to show your nightlife capabilities - and show off in general, fresh crowds and new people to bring in and form into regulars, etc, etc, however if you're going to open on a Friday and be understaffed, it's not going to go very smooth.
My fiance and I showed up around 7pm and were sat promptly outside with no wait, which was nice considering all of the people that were in the bar area. We didn't notice anything suspicious, everything seemed to be in good order and the place was spotless as far as cleanliness goes. Then we sat down with the menus and were left alone without a drink order. 10 minutes later, our waitress showed up and took our orders - Arnold Palmer and a Port Brewing Wipeout IPA. Another 10 minutes passes and the Arnold Palmer and two waters show up, but no beer. Apparently they're out of most of their craft draft and bottled beer due to their soft opening the night before. Okay, I guess I'll order something else. The waitress excuses herself before I can order a different beer and I watch as she takes orders from 5 other tables around us, runs to the bar and kitchen twice before returning with another Arnold Palmer. I order a Ska beer. "Which one? We have two." I know, bring me whichever one you have available right now. She smiles and trots away before we can order food. We sat for another 15 minutes before my fiance went up to the bar to order me a beer. The waitress passed us three more times before she brought out a beer for me, Ska Pinstripe red ale in a bottle. With no glass. But at least she stuck around long enough for us to order some food.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sucking down a beer straight from the bottle, but I wasn't exactly drinking a Corona or a Bud Lite. Even then, don't most sports bars - and bars/restaurants in general - provide a glass with a canned or bottled beer? I can even look past if the glass is frosted (yes, I am a beer snob, it happens to be my line of work), but to have no option of drinking out of a glass seems a little...odd to me. I chalked it up to it being opening night, again, but I was finally beginning to run out of patience when our food still hadn't arrived another 30 minutes later. I think the kicker for me was that the waitress kept zooming past us and offering up
"Just another 2 minutes!" "It'll be out soon!" "I think it's because you ordered the fillet that it's taking so long..." "Thanks for hanging in there!" "2 more minutes!" without stopping to refill drinks or ask if we needed anything else. I actually regretted not ordering appetizers, though we might have been there another half hour.
10 minutes (seemed to be the trend of the night - I know, I know, opening night) later, I get the other beer my fiance ordered at the bar (Ska Modus Hoperandi), though the bartender was nice enough to give it to me on the house for waiting so long. I could go on and on about how it took us close to an hour and a half to get our food, but in the end, we did get what we ordered (even after our waitress showed up with the next table's food convinced it was ours) and it wasn't half bad. It is not food I would graciously wait an hour and a half for, but it was satisfying. I ordered the fillet (I believe it's called Dennis' Fillet) cooked medium with prosciutto wrapped asparagus (which seemed pretty ritzy for a sports bar menu - but then it came with ranch and all was right with the world), and I received a slightly dry medium-well steak with blanched asparagus rested on some thick slices of...ham. Don't get me wrong, the food had flavor, just not an hour and a half's worth. Fiance got the blackened Cajun chicken sandwich with a side of pasta salad - the chicken had a nice kick, probably could've been seared a little more so the spices were more ingrained, but you won't hear any complaints about the pasta salad. It had more flavor than most of my meal combined.
All in all, the place has some fantastic potential, the location is spot on for being in downtown Chandler, and by the time we left, there was a little bit of a wait for people to get in to eat while the bar area was jam packed. I plan on revisiting in a month or so to see if they can get their act together and find their groove. All of the people who served us, save for our waitress, were very courteous and helpful - even if at a snail's pace, though they didn't like hearing that we weren't 100% satisfied with our table service (hey, they asked!). I'm sure this place will pick up some supportive regulars and turn out to be an awesome joint, just give it a little bit of time before you head in there, or at least be prepared to spend 2+ hours of your patience on the staff.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)