| rev:text
| - Visited Merwin's Wharf today for brunch after hearing great things and found myself quite underwhelmed.
We arrived and put in our names for a table and were told it would be an hour wait and they would text us when a table was ready. We weren't quite prepared for that, but took the time to walk around the area a bit. There are various benches / couches / etc. where you can park yourself while you wait for a table, but the hostess neglected to direct us to them...we did hear her telling another couple about them later as we were leaving, though. Walking around the building we noticed that while we were on a 1-hour wait list, there were 11 empty tables, inside and out combined. It's always disconcerting to be told there is a wait and then find out that literally half the restaurant is empty.
After about 30 minutes we sat inside hear the hostess station and killed time. My wife went up to the hostess station after we'd waited around 45 minutes total to get a look at the menu, and was told "Oh, your table is ready we tried to call you but you didn't answer." I had been looking at my phone for the 15 minutes prior to that, and not so much as a peep, so they clearly wrote down my number wrong. Aggravating, but mistakes happen. They seated us outside on the mostly empty patio.
We started off with waters and I ordered the Hemingway's Day Off, a rum drink that boasted Navy Strength rum, a touch of lime, seasonal fruit, and basil syrup. Sounds perfect for brunch outside! Eleven dollars later I got a martini glass filled with pulpy lime juice that perhaps, in another life, had been briefly introduced to someone named "Rum". Hemingway would have beaten someone senseless for serving him that.
It took about 25 minutes for our food to arrive (again, in a half-full restaurant that should have come out a bit faster) and it was about 50/50. My wife's Egg Sandwich ($9 - we ordered from the Brunch Menu) was fantastic, although being a vegetarian she skipped the pork belly which I did want to try. It came with Black Bean Hash, which appeared to be a child's order of french fries from McDonalds, cubed and thrown back into the fryer, and served with about 9 black beans mixed in for garnish. I ordered the Biscuits & Gravy ($12) and was disappointed to find two incredibly small biscuits in a tiny cast iron skillet with almost, but not quite, enough gravy to cover them. My side order of Wharf Hash was the same disappointing french fry concoction, which the menu states is "cooked in bacon fat and herbs" although I can't imagine how you could do that without imparting some kind of actual flavor. The bacon fat alone should have made them delicious, but they were dry and tasted like vegetable oil. The chorizo gravy on the biscuits was quite nice, and the biscuits themselves were alright, but it was a side order masquerading as an entree. If they had been incredibly delicious, I'd have been fine with the small portion. If they had been bountiful, I'd have been fine with the mediocrity. But they just didn't have enough going for them for me to ever want them again.
It seems clear that Merwin's Wharf is struggling through some growing pains. During the meal I counted 5 servers to 13 occupied tables, while people at the door were being turned away left and right with a wait time that ranged from 45 minutes to 2 hours. As we left I heard the hostess blaming the kitchen for the delay, saying "they got a big rush and couldn't keep up". Considering how few people were seated and ordering it seemed suspect that the kitchen couldn't keep up. It also seemed like bad form for a hostess to throw another group of the staff under the bus instead of just giving some kind of "we're just a bit short-staffed today, so our wait time is longer than usual" answer which covers the bases, lets your guests know there will be a wait, and doesn't put the blame on anyone specific. Treat your kitchen right!
Our server, Katie K. was fantastic, attentive, and quick. Although since she couldn't have had more than one or two other tables I guess that made it easier to be...we tipped her well since she clearly wasn't going to make any $$ on volume today and headed out.
The location is nice, and will be better once the rest of the Metroparks trails are finally connected to it. The menu isn't bad but needs some fine tuning to make it really shine. The wait staff is going to need better volume of tables if they're going to make enough money to want to stay there. The bartender should be shot. We're going to check back in 5 or 6 months and see how it goes but for now...caveat emptor.
|
![[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)