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| - utopia: a more ironic name i cannot recall.
it's a shame about this place. i've eaten here at least a dozen times and utopia has done nothing but go downhill. menu has great potential. oodles of vegetarian options. but, my food and my guest's food were both room temp. at best. restaurant itself is...filthy. pieces of dried food stuck on the wall beside our table. dust and grime so thick on the sugar caddy, i literally carved my initials into it.
apart from the aforementioned, my next complaint is the serving staff. they have one lone server working the whole restaurant. there is a "server assistant" helping out as well. the server assistant is basically there to bus dirties and refill water. if you ask for anything else, she politely gestures toward the server. there is NO way one server can adequately look after 20-ish tables. constantly waiting for...everything. and this is not a fluke, or a call-in-sick shortstaffed situation, this is the keep-labour-costs-down norm. they've got it running like a machine, i suppose. and if you want your experience to feel machinated, that's great. i'm not interested in water down, drink order, food order, check back, check down. i can dine at home for free and get better service from my boyfriend.
last, and perhaps most profound, was the "manager", mark (marc?). after asking our server to speak to the manager, i could see him across the room rehearsing the load of bs he was about to spew forth. without so much as a "hi", "hello", "how are you", "you asked to speak to the manager?", mark came up to the table and quickly pointed out that my concern (i won't get into the sordid tale b/c i don't feel like having a mini-stroke at recounting the details) was both unfounded and a nuisance, and then promptly and passive-aggressively, walked away without my saying a single syllable. wow. that was the manager. i hope the owner knows who he's got at the helm when he's away.
so, in sum, delicious sounding (stress: "sounding") menu items, room temperature food, robotic yet ironically slow service, no attention to detail, grimy environment and a manager that plumb doesn't give a rat's arse. the bf and i now refer to this place as "dystopia".
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