I went to Metro last weekend with a friend after taking shots of a public art display along the canal, when we decided to check out some place new for dinner and Metro was the first thing that popped up. As we walked towards the old Foodbar, we saw a lone guy with his Casio keyboard and a $5 light machine standing in the middle of the courtyard, entertaining the outdoor diners of both Digestif and Metro. And when he broke into a hilariously bad soulman rendition of Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" (OFF THE WALL, PEOPLE!) while the light machine did its magic, we knew we had to sit on the patio.
Our hostess was friendly, told us about the recession-buster drink specials, and seated us outside. I glanced at the menus she gave us- seemed a bit familiar, like Balthazar's in New York, but everything looked great. They serve dinner on weeknights till midnight, and weekends till 2 am. However, things pretty much started going downhill from there. Our waiter came by and sternly told us, verbatim, "You guys were seated at the same time as three other tables, so I can't help you right now." Huh? Um, ok. Never before did I feel like I offended a server simply by sitting down.
And his attitude got worse as the evening progressed. While we were looking at our menus, I noticed that Metro served poutine in its late night menu (Poutine's a French-Canadian mound of french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds and a favorite of mine from childhood). I'd never seen this in Arizona, and so when the waiter came by, I smiled and remarked to him, "That's pretty cool you guys serve poutine! I haven't seen that here." His response? "Well, you can't have any right now. We don't serve that until 10." What the fuck? I can READ, asshole. I was giving your restaurant a compliment and you returned it by being a condescending ass. My friend and I just looked at each other wondering if this was really happening.
I eventually decided to go with the steak frites ($19) and my friend ordered the salmon with spinach and fingerling potatoes ($18). As we were waiting for quite a while, the outdoor temperature started dipping pretty quickly and my friend asked a server if he could turn on the adjacent heat lamp. One of the other servers attempted to turn it on, it didn't work, and just left it not working. Didn't bother asking us if we'd like to move to a table near a working heat lamp. Nothing. My friend was getting cold, and also confused. "Did we seriously do anything to piss these people off?" she asked. I shrugged my shoulders because I had no idea.
As our food arrived after 40 minutes or so, my friend's sister came to join us (we were assuming since we were at a 4-top it wouldn't be a problem). Apparently it was, though, because there was no, "Hi! Would you like to see a menu? Anything to drink?" It was all her asking, "Excuse me? Um, hi. Can I see a menu? And your wine list? Thanks." Seriously, what is going on with this place? All three of us are here to spend money and are pretty nice people, but they could really give a crap less.
I will say the saving grace of Metro WAS the food. My steak frites were great (seriously, some of the best fries I've had in a long time) and my friend seemed to like her salmon. We decided to go for the beignets for dessert, served with little dipping cups of nutella, vanilla cream, and raspberry coulis. When they came, we asked for forks since otherwise we'd all have sauces all over our fingers. Waiter? "Well, you're SUPPOSED to eat them with your hands. Ok, I'll get you some forks." My friend's sister turned to us and asked us, "What the heck did you do to this guy?" Answer: Nothing. That said, the beignets were great.
So, yeah, folks, I am pretty pissed. Not just because as a paying and usually appreciative customer I was treated like complete shit by the waitstaff. But because I really wanted to enjoy this place. There's a Canadian connection there. And the food is actually really good. Had the service been just as good, or even at least remotely friendly, this place would be at least 4 stars, easy. I really don't get why, in this economy when restaurants are hurting, a waiter will think it's a great idea to be so cold to his customers. Does he actually want Metro to get bad worth-of-mouth about its service? My two friends are Scottsdale natives who love to eat out and often reserve large group dinners for birthdays and other occasions and he pretty much lost their business that evening. I'm going to probably give these guys another chance, just to have their poutine, and hopefully have better service by someone else, and would gladly update my review if that happens. But if service is the same, then these guys are off my list permanently.
A really disappointing and bewildering experience more than anything. Poor soulman singing "I Just Called To Say I Love You" on his Casio keyboard couldn't even make us feel better as we left. Alas.