Ramsha K.
Yelp
The food here is okay. It's the service that I'm iffy about.
I was visiting Connecticut and my dad recommended to my family that we come eat here. We walked in on a Friday night, it wasn't busy. I saw at least 6 or 7 staff members at the front counter, some of them were just talking to each other and some of them were bustling around trying to get pizza orders in - I guess they get a lot of to-go orders? Despite the number of staff it still took us awhile to get seated. We were just standing there awkwardly waiting to be seated. No acknowledgement from staff, no eye contact, nothing. Okay...typical northern hospitality I guess? Either way, strike 1.
Finally an employee at the counter asked, "Are you guys all set?" No sir, we literally just walked in? At that point I wanted to leave but decided to stay because of my father's recommendation. It took additional time for us to be seated but eventually they made it happen. There is plenty of booths for seating and there is a bar area in the back with a few large tables for bigger groups - though I would say these tables can only accommodate a group of 8.
We were seated in the bar area at one of the larger tables. This area was a little busier than the front but not by much. But it took us another 20 minutes to even be acknowledged by staff. Now, I normally wouldn't knock them for this because someone had a medical emergency in which EMS had to be called. I understand times like that are stressful, and I can understand the long wait because the focus absolutely must be on stabilizing the patient. But there was one server in the bar area walking around, socializing with other customers, standing there and casually talking to them, bringing them their drink orders and food, etc. But she didn't even acknowledge us. Once again, no eye contact, nothing. Honestly it was overall uncomfortable because it felt like she was purposefully avoiding having any kind of interaction with us. She had time to talk to other customers about random topics, but couldn't acknowledge us and inform us that it will be a bit of a wait due to a medical emergency? Even if she wasn't supposed to be our server, it would have been nice to know. Strike 2.
We felt uncomfortable trying to get the attention of the server in the bar area so my dad had to ask someone at the front counter if they could please take our order just for our drinks. Finally, a different server came to us and she was much more pleasant and friendly. She informed us about the situation and apologized for the wait. We were able to put our orders in and everything went smoothly afterwards.
Their menu has a lot of options. This restaurant focuses moreso on pizza, but they do have pasta, seafood, grinders, and other dishes as well. Most of us ordered the fish & chips. On the menu it states that all seafood dishes come with your choice of potato or pasta. There wasn't a section describing what choices of potato or side pasta you could get, but most of us decided to get fries as our choice of potato. My mother opted for a side pasta which was spaghetti (the other noodle option is penne) with marinara sauce (meatless). My brother opted for Asian sweet chili wings.
The food did not take long to come out. Overall, the food was okay - pretty decent. The fries had a good texture. The dish is served with two pieces of fish. The fish was not as crispy as I would have liked, but still okay. My mother's pasta tasted like what you'd expect - spaghetti with marinara sauce. Kind of reminds me of the spaghetti you get as a side option at fast food pizza joints in the mall food court. It's alright. My brother enjoyed his wings.
Service was good throughout the rest of the meal and our server once again apologized for the wait and told us "things are not normally like this" at the restaurant. She even comped our extra order of fries for the inconvenience, so that was really nice on her part. The server I previously mentioned who never acknowledged us finally spoke to us and asked if she could clear up the plates from our table...how convenient.
Overall, the food here isn't bad and I certainly hope things are not always this way at the restaurant. To be honest though, as a person of color I felt uncomfortable at first. Maybe it's unrelated, but to see the other server speak with other customers and be friendly with them but constantly turn her back on us and avoid eye contact - not even speaking to us until the very end is off-putting and doesn't look good on part of the establishment.
The only reason I'm giving 3 stars instead of 2 is because our actual server saved the day and she was very friendly and kind. Definitely put us more at ease and made us feel more welcome, so I'm grateful for that. I might give this place benefit of the doubt and come back, hopefully things will be better.