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| - If there is an option to give a negative review, I would give minus 10 stars review for this restaurant.
I can say that the food was decent, but the service was totally horrendous!!!
The server, whose name is Sarah, only cared about having you ordered expensive food on the menu so that she could get a big tip!
I came to Cleveland for a visit and I have been to almost all of Zack Bruell's restaurants in Cleveland, until I came here then I realized it was totally a waste of time and money!
So, it was Sunday afternoon at around 3:45-4pm. Sarah, who was our server, gave us the restaurant week menu and the regular menu. She left and came back about 15-20 minutes later.
We started looking at the menu and we noticed that the menu has a 'Happy Hour 3-6 Daily' together with the list of the happy hour meals and drinks. I then mentioned to her that we would like to order the 'restaurant week' 3 courses of meals and some of the happy hour meals and drinks. I was surprised when she looked very unhappy when I mentioned about happy hour menu. She said we are not supposed to order from the happy hour menu, the happy hour price are only for people sitting in the bar. I was very surprised because we she did not explain to us until we placed an order nor does the restaurant put a sign anywhere in the menu and in the restaurant itself.
(I asked the manager later, he confirmed that we could order happy hour menu without having to sit at the bar)
Here when her responses was really shocked me:
She kept saying that the price in the happy hour is 'not much different' compared to the regular menu. She then gave an example that oyster is $2 for happy hour and $2.95 in the regular menu. I was really shocked when she kept saying 'NOT MUCH DIFFERENT', because from $2 to $2.95 is almost 50% increase in price!!
Then I asked her about the wine, which is $4 for happy hour and $8 on average in the regular menu.
Again, she replied that we are not supposed to order from the happy hour menu and the price is 'NOT MUCH DIFFERENT' (from $4 to $8 is 100% increase in price!!!). Finally, reluctantly, she said that she could take order from happy hour but not the drink.
We then ordered 'Bloody Mary' for drinks (since she would not let us order drinks from happy hour menu), 3 courses from the Restaurant Week menu, 2 courses from regular menu and 2 courses from happy hour menu.
When I asked her about the Hamachi Collar, she said that the portion is very small. I was not sure if she was trying to discourage me from ordering something that is not 'very expensive', or it is because of her lack of knowledge about the food that the restaurant serves. Because the Hamachi Collar's portion was actually big.
I have to tell you that the food in the Alley Cat restaurant was good, but the service was extremely poor.
The service was super slow, the server almost never came back to check our table, when she did check our table THE ONLY THING SHE CARED WAS asking if we would like to order more drink. Because of the slowness of the service (considered that the restaurant was not busy at all at that time) we then decided to take the dessert home. But again, we had to wait for another 25 minutes just for a dessert that was already pre-made and could just be grabbed from the refrigerator.
WE COULD NOT WAIT TO LEAVE!!!
Overall, our afternoon was ruined by the service here: THE SERVER ATTITUDE WAS VERY BAD, it seemed that she did not even want to work at this restaurant. She was lucky that my boyfriend is a very generous guy and still gave her a 15% tips which she did not deserve it at all !!! With her constant comments of 'not much difference in the price', I think 'with tips' and 'no tips' should also make no difference to her! Moreover, we were charge an additional $2 for the Bloody Mary, but we just did not want to spend any more time to ask the server about it. It was not about the $2, the thing that bother us the most was that the server should have explained up front any additional charges when we placed the order.
WE WILL NEVER COME BACK TO THIS RESTAURANT WITH CRAP HOLE SERVICE!
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