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| - Okay.. now I get it.. I am going to have to unfortunately update my review, changing this place from one of my potential favorites in Montreal, to one of the most dissapointing.. It turns out the one "bad" waitress from last time, was more of a taster of the norm than the other nicer server I managed to find that night.
My sister was visiting town last night, and previously when I went to Mais, I thought she'd love it, like me and my wife do, so I reserved to come here with her. But from the second we arrived, though, even having reservations, we were just met with severe negativity and dismissive "service".. Almost every single thing, from "Where is the bathroom?" to "Any other nice cocktails to have with food here other than margaritas?" was met with serious disdain. The staffer would stop blank faced, kind of annoyed, mumble something dismissively, and walk off. And we were never sure if he heard or what or what.. And that's if they would answer. A couple times he just lifted his eyebrows in a "whatever," way, no words, and then we'd sit and wait confused and maybe something would show up. It was hit or miss what showed up. About 2/3 of what we ordered.
But then later ordering our food (about an hour into our night), mid sentence from my sister, the guy just pulled away and walked off to the kitchen, we looked at each other confused wondering what just happened, I thought maybe something urgent he forgot.. but then he strolled out, leaned on the bar and joked with another girl server for like 2-3min at the bar, eventually I made eye contact with him gesturing with my hand like "what's going on?", he storms back over looking really annoyed now, so when I reminded him of our taco order, and if my sister could finish ordering her food he said something along the lines of, "Obviously, or what you wanna make it yourself...?" followed by some nondescript slur under his breathe. He tried to cover it up with a smile, but my sister was furious now about to stand up and lose it on this guy. If I wasn't such a patient person in service situations [I worked as a waiter many times in my life], I wouldve thrown fuel, but I just tried to ignore and gestured for her to not, but thought to myself, "I'm never coming back here," and finished our order. My sister wanted to walk out right then and there, but I said give it a chance still. But the guy then proceeded to smugly slam everything down on the table from then onwards.
There was a very strange inferiority complex stemming from the wait staffers, anything we ordered was sort of met with this weird power struggle spite. There was definitely something going on, it wasn't a normal experience. But impossible to take in stride. Maybe the management/staff were in some kind of internal dispute or something, I dunno, we started to speculate, but that's not my job/role as a customer.
Now. All that said, again, I must note that when the food came, all the tacos: fish, carnitas, others, & drinks were excellent. Really yummy, fresh & well priced. Kitchen/bartenders have got it down. But the wait staff made me feel like complete shit constantly, all of us. And by this point it was really kind of miserable, especially because I knew the bill was going to be well over $100 (I really wanted to have a great night with my sister/pay for all of us).
Anyhow, eventually I asked the staffer what was wrong, or if we had done something, to which the guy smiled and exclaimed "Nothing at all man, why?!" very joyfully/off-guard. But then it just continued, so I think he was being sardonic in retrospect. Anyway, we figured maybe it was just the one guy (last time I had a hit/miss thing with the staffers too), maybe having a bad night, so I asked another wait girl, and weirdly she did almost the exact same!. Just the same angry face, disdainful treatment, an entirely "fuck you customer" experience. It was really disheartening. Just a two hour painful "hospitality" nightmare.
When it came to the end, whatever "it" was, I asked for the bill. I left 0 tip. First time ever in my whole life. But it was the only way I knew how to express my anger without lowering myself to what they were doing. But sadly, I felt I was still well over a $100 short, and really really upset by the loss of money and horrible experience. Obviously the staff didn't say anything, because it was obvious how out of line their "service" was.
I can never ever return here now. Even if I wanted to, the staffers have made it ethically impossible for me. And that is a real shame, because I loved it before. Bad service is one thing, but paying ppl to treat you like shit (especially as a high paying return customer with reservations) is just completely out of line (regardless of previous experiences). And it wasn't a busy night. The onus is totally on management to realize that they have ppl working for them that are actively destroying what should easily be a fantastic place.
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