New in my city. Less than a week old, in fact.
I make a reservation. 4 for 5:30.
We arrive at 5. Wait the thirty minutes (we know we're early), The buzzy thing goes off at 5:30 on the dot. Happy times all around.
We sit down, the waitress shows up, we order drinks. 2 sweet teas, a hot tea, a diet coke.
We wait 15 minutes.
Drinks arrive.
Waitress: Would anyone care for an appetizer?
Us: Sure! We'll have some harvest spring rolls, some steamed dumplings, and some lettuce wraps.
Waitress: Okay! And, *poof* away she goes.
Us: Okay...
Waitress comes back to refill teas.
Us: Can we go ahead and order entrees?
We don't take entree orders until the appetizers are done, because if we do, everything comes out at one time.
Us: Okay...
Waitress comes back and takes our order anyway. Tofu with green curry sauce, tofu ma po, 2 other tofu noodle dishes.
Waitress comes back with delicious appetizers.
Manager arrives as if teleported to our table.
Manager: Hi, I'm the manager, I wanted to come by to see who'd been here before? (One of our party had been). Ok, well, we have some bad news. We're out of tofu.
Us: *jaws drop*
Manager: Well, we're not totally out, but we don't have any silken.
Us: Well can you use the other kind?
Manager: Oh, ok. Sure.
Manager leaves.
Us: What was the point of that? If you've got tofu, use it! We don't care...
45 minutes pass.
Another, different manager shows up.
Manager part deux: Sorry, one of your entrees was made wrong, the food will be here shortly. For the long wait, and the tofu incident, I'd like to give you one of the entrees free, as well as dessert.
Us: Yay!
15 minutes pass.
Runner brings food, everything's fabulous (and burn-the-mouth hot).
Waitress come back, does a quality check.
A note here: She has yet to tell us any bad news herself, or apologize. Nor has she smiled at any of us. (Smiles go along way with the group I was with).
We finish eating, and chat more.
15 minutes pass, we catch our waitress, and ask for a dessert menu and togo boxes.
Waitress brings boxes, and leaves them on the tray stand, and disappears.
We reach for the boxes, and start putting our food into them. She reappears, and makes the ah-ah-ah bad dog noise at us. She grabs back the boxes and starts putting the food into them.
We order dessert.
10 minutes later, dessert arrives, we eat it, finish talking, half of the party has to leave because they're going to NC and are late enough starting out already.
My fiancee and I wait for the check for about another 10 minutes. We pay, its the first time the waitress has reappeared in a timely manner.
We didn't want to 'camp' at the table. Actually, we were in a bit of a rush toward the end because of half of the party needing to go to NC. Honestly, the thing about 'we don't take appetizers and entree orders at the same time was the most baffling. Maybe you don't put them into the computer at the same time, but... sure.
I was so tempted to not leave a tip. I did, but ... I also know the restaurant basically made no money on a four top that was in the restaurant 3 hours. Honestly, the food was good, but... the service was awful.