When I arrived at this spacious restaurant there were almost no customers, so when the hostess seated me and assured me “your server will be right with you,” there was no reason to doubt it. Employees seemed scarce, mostly across the restaurant behind the takeout counter, giving me the impression that anyone who was on duty must be lurking around the kitchen. Once or twice a server sauntered out to give attention to one of the couple of occupied tables, but no one ventured near me. After an unacceptably long wait, the same person who seated me turned out to be my server! I’m not sure what she was doing for all that time.

When the wings arrived and I took the first bite I discovered they were only barely warm. (I’m not being picky here, they were really unacceptable for what should be considered a “hot meal”). I began to scan the room, hoping to get the attention of my server, who was, alas, nowhere to be seen. After what I thought was long enough to wait for anyone who might be mildly interested in what was going on at our table, I decided to walk the basket of cold wings over to the takeout counter. As I got about halfway across the room, our server appeared from wherever it was everyone was hiding, saw me heading for the counter with a full basket of wings, and (I’m not lying here) walked right by me without even making eye contact!

Wait, it gets better.

I was met at the counter by a gentleman who I believe was the manager. He assured me that a fresh batch would be produced forthwith. Sure enough, another person showed up fairly quickly with another basket of wings, which I discovered on the first bite was EXACTLY THE SAME as the first batch.

To his credit, the manager came over and asked how they were, but I unfortunately had to inform him that they were exactly the same as the first batch. I asked him to have our server bring the check for our drinks, as I was not paying for the wings, and that we would search for dinner at another establishment. Also to his credit, he said he would not charge us for the drinks, either, and he offered to bring us still more wings, but at that point the old adage about “fool me once, shame on you., etc…” was echoing in my brain. His story seemed to be that there was a limit on how long wings were to be kept in a warming drawer before being thrown out, and some new kitchen help had violated that rule. Twice, apparently. And while he was standing there with them, it seems. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t notice the second time. The story certainly didn’t bolster my confidence about consuming food produced in this kitchen. The manager was obviously embarrassed and very apologetic, but that was beside the point.

We stayed long enough to finish our drinks, and in the meantime the manager showed up with another basket of wings in hand, which we politely refused. On our way out, we passed our server, who wished us a nice day.

This is a large restaurant, and there were perhaps 2 other tables occupied in the entire place. I shudder to think what would happen if they became busy. I certainly will never return to find out. Possibly no one else will find out either, because if everyone has the same kind of experience I had, this store will never have to deal with the problem of being busy.

(Rating of 1 star, because 0 is not accepted)