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| - The most over-rated Yelp-recommended place I've yet to encounter.
I am a fan of dives. I like to find places that are a little rough around the edges that serve food to please a local community. Those places are why I use Yelp in the first place. OW is a dive, but as such, I judged accordingly. My 1 star rating has nothing to do with it's atmosphere or clientele.
I will admit that the rating has to do with 3 things, some of which others may not have experienced on their visits. Sometimes, patrons try a place out and its just a bad day - the kitchen is off, the waiters are slammed, the manager just got divorced. Unfortunately for those restaurants, "them's the breaks." You don't often get second chances to make a first impression - and my first impression of the Original Wineburger's blew.
Onto the three things:
First, the burger. For a venue named after it's signature product, you'd think more attention would be paid to quality. The burger was served on a very nice bun, but the meat that was on it was by all accounts, flavorless. I expected a wine taste, or some sweetness, or some aroma. I and my companion both had to add salt to what was otherwise a patty devoid of taste.
Second, the fries. Yes, they are beer battered, but I'd be hard pressed to give a place laurels for something that Rally's can replicate. And to make matters worse, they came to me burned. Severely burned - like an albino left in the desert without suntan lotion. Inedible. We sent them back - but really, how do you screw up fries? It's not even cooking - you're just waiting for the oil to do its work. All you have to look at a timer - when a place screws up fries (or toast for that matter) there's anarchy in the kitchen.
Finally, the service. Now here's where it gets tricky. Since OW is a dive, I'm not expecting great service. That's not what they are there to do - the service should be very basic - right? Take my order, bring me my food in a reasonable time, and bring me my bill with a smile. That's all. If it's really busy, I'm even more lenient.
On the night we went, OW was practically empty - there were two other tables in the place. It took our waitress 15 minutes to greet us. Which doesn't sound long - but is far longer than most places on a slow night. When we placed our order, we asked about the wineburger, what's it about? Since we never had one before, we thought it a reasonable question to ask. Based on her response, you would have thought we asked her if we could take a crap on her floor. Our food took a little long to get out to us, but we thought it was due to the painstaking magic that was going on behind the scenes. When we sent our fries back for fresh ones, we got them long after the burgers were finished, rendering them useless. The final insult was when trying to leave, we couldn't find our waitress - apparently she took her cigarette break just as we were ready to leave - so we had to flag down another waiter to leave the place.
Again, this experience may be atypical but its real. Now I ask you fellow Yelpers, when a place gives you bad food and bad service - what rating are you supposed to give them?
I certainly would not recommend this place to any person I like.
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