Pickle Bill's in Grand River, Ohio
Holy shit!!! I am still astounded at the experience we had at this well known, in the Northeast Ohio restaurant circles anyway, spot called Pickle Bill’s in Grand River. We went to dinner at approximately 6PM on Saturday March 3rd, 2007. The beginning of our latest adventure was somewhat off-putting to me due to the seeming lack of organization at the “greeter’s desk. We made reservations but were told to stand in line and await our turn along with everyone else. I did see the woman at the doorway to the restaurant proper cross off something that stated our quantity as well as time, but it did not seem as though we were being treated differently than the rest of the people in the line. What, I ask you, was the use of reservations?
We were seated out back near the river, the sight was awesome due to the ice and possibility of disaster, in our minds at least (first good point). Our server, Kim, began by being very friendly and helping to get us situated, but her ability soon faltered to a place I have seldom seen. After getting our drinks, mind you there were only five of us so this was not an extraordinarily large table, in fact it was just about average, she asked us if we would like an appetizer. She walked away before we were given a chance to answer, AND we wanted an appetizer. The next time we saw her was more than 30 minutes later. We stopped another female, Jessica, and asked that she send Kim to us. She asked, in a very rude manner, “Why?” Three of us at the exact same moment said, “We would like to finally put in an order.” Jessica immediately pulled out her order pad and wrote down what we wanted. She did not apologize for the other’s mistake, nor even acknowledge that we should have been a bit incensed. I need to take this time to say that the section in which we sat was not over crowded. There were tables on either side of us without patrons while we were there.
When our food finally began trickling to our table, we were somewhat surprised. I was very happy with the flavor of the coleslaw. The better than, “hint,” of horseradish was a hit in my mind. The fried dough and cinnamon butter, though was not something I would like again. I would have preferred a nice crusty Italian or French bread with regular butter, but, that is just my preference. The shrimp cocktail had some good sized shrimp, but they tasted and felt as if they had been soaking in water for a bit too long. The cocktail sauce was awful. It was nothing like the sauces one usually gets, tomato based with horseradish. This had a chili powder taste that one in our party thought was great and I thought as I stated above. Some things should just be left alone unless the customer is given a choice or at least warned.
The entrees finally started to arrive about 25 minutes after ordering. Not great, but not entirely off the charts either. Once again, though, Kim was no where to be found. Factually, just after we forced Jessica to take our order, Kim came over to the table, squatted down as if we were children, and tried to ask if all was well. It was not, but, being intelligent consumers, we did not want to rile anyone at least until we had gotten our food. She laughed at something that was said but the chuckle was so forced it made us want to call management right then. It is better, Kim, not to laugh at all than to make the attempt at a fake. People can tell, you ass..
King crab was ordered by one, snow crab and prime by another, snow crab and filet by another, lobster tail and filet by another, and a chicken Caesar salad by another. The chicken Caesar was good as were the snow crab orders, not much you can do to those after all, though not very hot. The lobster was phenomenal and the one filet was also very good. We DID have to call Jessica back to the table quite quickly because the king crab was frigid. It felt as though it had not even been heated. When she took the bucket, she just reached over two people and snatched it without and, “excuse me; sorry; oops” or anything of the sort. We did not make the mistake, your people did. We were suddenly being punished for wasting a great deal of time and money on your establishment. Then we found something else wrong. My prime was tough, which should not ever be with a medium rare prime rib. The other filet was dry and overcooked; it was ordered medium and came out well. This was brought to the attention of Kim, who showed up for some reason, and she offered a free dessert, that was not acceptable when one had to pay and extra $12.00 or something on those lines for the filet. Poor table waiting skills were evident there. At this point we were so disgusted all we wanted was to leave. She asked us all if we wanted dessert, which, she would have already known had she listened to us earlier when we all said, “No,” to that same question.
“We just want our check,” was stated by one of my companions. Kim, in one of the most disgusting display I have EVER seen in a restaurant asked, “Are you guys mad at me?” What the fuck????? You don’t ask something like that! Who in the hell taught this woman server technique? Fire them and her in my mind.
Insult was added to injury when we finally got our checks, one for two of us and one for the other three. We saw that, “gratuity,” was added to each of our checks. “A gratuity”, we fumed!!! That worthless piece of garbage server didn’t deserve a dollar much less that insulting 17% she saw fit to put upon the bills. We could not believe our eyes. When confronted, she said, “The computer automatically adds the gratuity to parties of more than five.” As I have already stated, we were a party OF five, not MORE THAN five. So she lied. But, one of our party did make and astounding observation, “No wonder the bitch ignored us, she already had her tip so she didn’t have to treat us well. That’s why she was up the ass of the three person table near the doorway to the enclosed deck instead of down by us." She acted surprised when confronted with her poor skills and immediately stated, “Well, I don’t understand how that happened, there were three of us down here.” That was true, but she was our server, and Jessica was obviously put out when we needed someone to take our order. The third person was another woman, who was actually quite good with her tables, but she had nothing to do with us, nor should she have.
For Christ's sake, we spent over $220.00 there. Our service should have been great.
Get rid of this woman. She needs to be working somewhere else. Normally we would have asked to speak with management, but we were so incredibly pissed-off we had to leave. We were afraid of what might be said. After this experience I would be hard-pressed to recommend this place to anybody. What happened? Read it in the Graham Nation magazine as well as the "What the hell is going on," blog. Whatthellsgoing.blogspot.com .
We were seated out back near the river, the sight was awesome due to the ice and possibility of disaster, in our minds at least (first good point). Our server, Kim, began by being very friendly and helping to get us situated, but her ability soon faltered to a place I have seldom seen. After getting our drinks, mind you there were only five of us so this was not an extraordinarily large table, in fact it was just about average, she asked us if we would like an appetizer. She walked away before we were given a chance to answer, AND we wanted an appetizer. The next time we saw her was more than 30 minutes later. We stopped another female, Jessica, and asked that she send Kim to us. She asked, in a very rude manner, “Why?” Three of us at the exact same moment said, “We would like to finally put in an order.” Jessica immediately pulled out her order pad and wrote down what we wanted. She did not apologize for the other’s mistake, nor even acknowledge that we should have been a bit incensed. I need to take this time to say that the section in which we sat was not over crowded. There were tables on either side of us without patrons while we were there.
When our food finally began trickling to our table, we were somewhat surprised. I was very happy with the flavor of the coleslaw. The better than, “hint,” of horseradish was a hit in my mind. The fried dough and cinnamon butter, though was not something I would like again. I would have preferred a nice crusty Italian or French bread with regular butter, but, that is just my preference. The shrimp cocktail had some good sized shrimp, but they tasted and felt as if they had been soaking in water for a bit too long. The cocktail sauce was awful. It was nothing like the sauces one usually gets, tomato based with horseradish. This had a chili powder taste that one in our party thought was great and I thought as I stated above. Some things should just be left alone unless the customer is given a choice or at least warned.
The entrees finally started to arrive about 25 minutes after ordering. Not great, but not entirely off the charts either. Once again, though, Kim was no where to be found. Factually, just after we forced Jessica to take our order, Kim came over to the table, squatted down as if we were children, and tried to ask if all was well. It was not, but, being intelligent consumers, we did not want to rile anyone at least until we had gotten our food. She laughed at something that was said but the chuckle was so forced it made us want to call management right then. It is better, Kim, not to laugh at all than to make the attempt at a fake. People can tell, you ass..
King crab was ordered by one, snow crab and prime by another, snow crab and filet by another, lobster tail and filet by another, and a chicken Caesar salad by another. The chicken Caesar was good as were the snow crab orders, not much you can do to those after all, though not very hot. The lobster was phenomenal and the one filet was also very good. We DID have to call Jessica back to the table quite quickly because the king crab was frigid. It felt as though it had not even been heated. When she took the bucket, she just reached over two people and snatched it without and, “excuse me; sorry; oops” or anything of the sort. We did not make the mistake, your people did. We were suddenly being punished for wasting a great deal of time and money on your establishment. Then we found something else wrong. My prime was tough, which should not ever be with a medium rare prime rib. The other filet was dry and overcooked; it was ordered medium and came out well. This was brought to the attention of Kim, who showed up for some reason, and she offered a free dessert, that was not acceptable when one had to pay and extra $12.00 or something on those lines for the filet. Poor table waiting skills were evident there. At this point we were so disgusted all we wanted was to leave. She asked us all if we wanted dessert, which, she would have already known had she listened to us earlier when we all said, “No,” to that same question.
“We just want our check,” was stated by one of my companions. Kim, in one of the most disgusting display I have EVER seen in a restaurant asked, “Are you guys mad at me?” What the fuck????? You don’t ask something like that! Who in the hell taught this woman server technique? Fire them and her in my mind.
Insult was added to injury when we finally got our checks, one for two of us and one for the other three. We saw that, “gratuity,” was added to each of our checks. “A gratuity”, we fumed!!! That worthless piece of garbage server didn’t deserve a dollar much less that insulting 17% she saw fit to put upon the bills. We could not believe our eyes. When confronted, she said, “The computer automatically adds the gratuity to parties of more than five.” As I have already stated, we were a party OF five, not MORE THAN five. So she lied. But, one of our party did make and astounding observation, “No wonder the bitch ignored us, she already had her tip so she didn’t have to treat us well. That’s why she was up the ass of the three person table near the doorway to the enclosed deck instead of down by us." She acted surprised when confronted with her poor skills and immediately stated, “Well, I don’t understand how that happened, there were three of us down here.” That was true, but she was our server, and Jessica was obviously put out when we needed someone to take our order. The third person was another woman, who was actually quite good with her tables, but she had nothing to do with us, nor should she have.
For Christ's sake, we spent over $220.00 there. Our service should have been great.
Get rid of this woman. She needs to be working somewhere else. Normally we would have asked to speak with management, but we were so incredibly pissed-off we had to leave. We were afraid of what might be said. After this experience I would be hard-pressed to recommend this place to anybody. What happened? Read it in the Graham Nation magazine as well as the "What the hell is going on," blog. Whatthellsgoing.blogspot.com .
posted by johnathan e at 5:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home