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| - I want to like this place. I really do. It has a great beer & wine menu, its food menu always sounds so good, its frites really are delicious, but meh, it always disappoints. I went there for lunch today with a girlfriend who's moving out of town. It was her farewell-to-Madison lunch - a place she had been excited about going to ("I've never been there!") and man, what a disappointment.
First of all, service is a mess. Individual staff are very nice and friendly, but they all seem to have no idea what the others are doing. Confusion at the front of the house about whether we - and others - had been greeted yet, with the bartender apparently handling the hostess duties because she was too busy? It wasn't crowded at all but it took quite a while for our server to show up to take our drink order and then we waited 10 minutes for our drinks to actually arrive - and since we'd just ordered bottles of Crispin cider, you wouldn't think it would be that complicated. We were there for lunch - who can wait this long for drinks and food at lunch on a weekday, for pete's sake?
Second, I have never had a grosser sandwich than their "grilled zucchini" sandwich. We both thought it was absolutely awful. The "beet goat cheese" was more like an unappetizing smear of pink all over the toast. The "roasted bell peppers" and "grilled zucchini" were slimy and oily. The whole thing tasted terrible and looked even worse. What a bummer.
Third, any place that makes you sit with your dirty, finished plates in front of you for 20 minutes gets dinged big time in my book. We pushed our plates aside and then sat there, talking, with those messy plates in our way until I finally signaled to our server - who was chatting with another server at the bar - to ask if we could get our check. I shouldn't have to get your attention to get our check - especially not at lunch when you should anticipate that after an hour+, we probably need to get back to work. I shouldn't have to sit with dirty plates in front of me for 20 minutes. Aren't these basics at most restaurants?
I work fairly close to Monroe Street and am always looking for nearby places for lunch or after-work drinks/dinner. I wish this place were a better option.
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