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| - Pros: Nice Atmosphere | Unique Menu | Decent Mains
Cons: Very Loud | Dried Out Fruit | Horrendous Service | Cash Only | Wait Times
Bottom Line: Go if you find poor service to be entertaining or you view dining out as an extreme sport.
My partner lives in the area and for years we have been waiting for something to open in the empty space now occupied by Starving Artist. It had also been years since I've had waffles of any kind and was delighted to learn that Starving Artist is entirely Waffle obsessed.
Would I go back? Not likely.
Did I enjoy my waffles? Yes
Does this place deserve to survive? Not with the current staff / service
Where to go instead: Prop does an amazing brunch (though no waffles as far as I can remember)
We had decided the night before that we would hit this place up for brunch the next morning. I decided to read up to see when exactly it opened and what people were saying. The reviews on Yelp were a bit ominous so I went in without many expectations.
We walked in and were surprised at how busy the place was given how recently it opened. It was packed with twenty-somethings, a couple of families and some older couples. The music (while fun and eclectic in selection) was too loud to hear what your company has to say. This is more of an issue because you will spend much of your time waiting...and waiting. It took us longer than it should have to be seated. While I wouldn't go so far as to say the staff is indifferent (the woman at the register kept acknowledging our presence to say someone will be with us shortly) I will say the priorities are skewed and they are heavily understaffed at best. Instead of the hostess / server seating us right away she continued to serve and clear tables until our annoyance was more...palpable.
The moment we are seated we are told it will be 40 minutes. In my confusion I blurted out, "FOR FOOD!!??!" This is unacceptable to me but they're new, it was the weekend and I thought, what the hell, let's give this a shot. The table had water on it and after waiting some time I decided to use my own napkin to wipe it up. Five minutes later someone came to wipe it (pointless at this time) while taking our orders. I asked for another napkin for the first of what would be many times. Instead of receiving a napkin someone else came by to wipe the table a second time for reasons unknown.
I'll stop here and say there seems to be a real lack of understanding on the part of the staff of how to serve tables. It's as though there is a communication barrier despite the fact we all speak English.
Our food came quite a bit quicker than the 40 minutes they quoted us at the start. The younger couple next to us with their laptop had been there sometime before and received their food a fair amount of time after ours. It was not clear whether ours was just easier to make, they sped it up for us, or the other couple was just hanging out and decided later to order something.
I ordered the Sammy Benny and the strawberry/banana smoothie while my partner had soda, a caffé americano and the Monte Cristo. My partner enjoyed his meal and mentioned the coffee was good (contradicting some earlier reviews on here disparaging the coffee). I really enjoyed the Sammy Benny and the salmon I found quite fine, not fishy as mentioned in other reviews. It was a bit messy at times but quite good. The fruit (as mentioned on other reviews) was indeed dry for me as well and not as flavorful as it should have been.
At the end my partner graciously shared his single, small, napkin between the two of us. My multiple attempts to get a whole napkin for myself was a spectacular failure.
The food for the price was reasonable. My inability to get a napkin after asking for one 3 times is not reasonable in any way.
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