Ben P.
Yelp
I have been dining out at restaurants running the gamut of price and quality for more than 25 years. I've had mostly great experiences, and a handful of bad ones. Never once have I had an experience as atrocious as the one I had last night at Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack. A summary of the key points follows.
We arrived for our party of 12 on time at 8 pm and were promptly seated. The "positives" start and stop with that fact.
Once seated, there weren't enough table settings or menus, which was a little surprising given that we were one person short. No biggie. We squeezed and shared.
It took about 15 minutes for our primary server to take our drink order, and another 15 minutes for the drinks to arrive. Once they did, my girlfriend's espresso martini tasted like watered down espresso. My drink was fine, but the second one (which came way later) was also watered down.
I say "primary server" because multiple members of the wait staff occasionally stopped by our table, never bearing any good news. One lady appeared to only know one English expression - "just a minute" - and she used it irrespective of whether it was responsive to what we were saying to her.
After the first round of drinks came, nothing happened for 45 minutes. That includes our receipt of the bottle of wine we ordered or any of our appetizers coming. In fact, it was around 90 minutes before any of our appetizers arrived, and even those were incomplete.
At this point, multiple tables around us started legit bouncing, leaving unfinished drinks and unpaid bills in their wake. Nobody was around to stop them. We should have done the same.
It was only then, at some point between the first and second appetizers, that we received the first acknowledgment of the poor service and an attempted explanation. As for the explanation, the primary server noted that the restaurant was only expecting 15 guests that night and had received many more. Given the holiday weekend, not to mention our reservation of 12, this was implausible on its face. It would also later be flatly contradicted with a differing explanation from the owner (see below).
Eventually, the rest of the appetizers arrived. Those that I tasted were adequate, but not worth their price tags.
Delays persisted. Our primary waitress then began sobbing. She claimed to have burned her hand on a hot plate. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt here, despite her prior dubious claim about the 15 reservations, because plates do get very hot when left unattended for prolonged periods under standing heat lamps. (An aside for all you Hamptons folk who've never worked in a restaurant, kitchens use these things to keep food warm while servers and food runners are out of the kitchen. But they are not meant to be used for more than a minute or two; if they are, the plates become burning hot and the food overcooks. Spoiler alert: this happened to our food.)
At about two hours in, the entrees dropped. As indicated, they were not good. For a description of my chicken, please see my prior review of the now defunct Over Easy Breakfast Club in Philadelphia. Then imagine that chicken, but dryer and harder. My girlfriend's scallops were all but frozen on the inside. The steak had clearly been basted by burnt butter. Everything I tasted was all so bad!
Firmly into hour three of our meal, Old Stove's owner, Joseph DeCristofaro, finally meandered over to our table. His demeanor should have been one of profuse remorse; instead it was one of unrestrained self pity. While at our table, Joseph: (1) blamed his point-of-sale system, Toast, for the night's events; (2) actually asked us, despite most of our food being visibly uneaten, "at least the food was good?"; (3) boasted that, on the night before, Old Stove served something like 250 tables "flawlessly"; and (4) reacted to our very reasonable request that he comp our largely inedible meal by saying, "not gonna happen." His eventual counteroffer to not charge us for half of a wholly terrible meal was abysmally inadequate. So was his apology. Joseph, if you're reading this, please be advised that I do not accept your insincere apology. If you are not reading this, Jesus fucking Christ dude how are you not reading Yelp after last night?!
Nota bene: none of the above is misquoted or embellished in the slightest. It all happened as a matter of fact and exactly as described. Ultimately, we paid about 45 percent of our bill and tipped fairly. This was nothing short of a gargantuan overpayment, which, in the Hamptons, is really saying something.
Oh and the ambiance sucked too.
