Jennifer W.
Yelp
It pains me to have to update my review of 7 West because I really did love this place, but my recent experiences have been so bad I can no longer justify my previous 5 star rating.
The food quality has remained about the same, hence the 2 stars given, but the service has been absolutely terrible. They have implemented an automatic 18% gratuity to every order, a slap in the face to any customer as the staff are just taking this as an opportunity to not offer good service. During one of my visits, I waited 15 mins at the door before anyone greeted or even acknowledged me. It was a busy night, and about 70% of the tables were filled, but 3 staff members walked right by me several times without so much as a glance or a "I'll be right with you". I had to loudly address a server walking by to ask her if we could have a table for 2, to which she rolled her eyes and then promptly walked away. She did come back eventually, but was clearly very irate and couldn't be bothered with us. Another time I visited at around 3pm, and the place was empty except for one other table. We were seated very quickly but as soon as we got the food, all service stopped. 5 different times I had to stare and work to flag someone down to ask for water, bread, more water, a takeout container, and for another slice of cake to be brought because the one we received was frozen (fork couldn't poke through it). Since there was only one other table, it really wasn't busy, all the staff were just standing and talking behind the bar while occasionally filling takeout orders. All the sit down customers were forgotten about. Our server with the curly hair was really friendly, but so hard to flag down. He didn't charge us the automatic gratuity this time which I appreciated. The blonde girl behind the bar (same one who was extremely rude when I asked for a table) should really consider a career change given how much she appears to hate working there. A couple times food and bread had come out and instead of bringing it out she just stood behind the bar eating bits of bread, cake, whatever, while chatting with someone else. She did not wear her mask (pulled down to her chin), and to my horror after sticking her fingers in her mouth (eating), she proceeded to touch the outside of her mask, and without washing her hands brought my food over.
Honestly so disappointed because I have so many good memories of this place, and now they have all been replaced by the bad experiences. The 18% automatic gratuity is extremely insulting given the mediocre service offered by the staff. I don't look forward to returning and will stick with UberEats.
Tl;dr
Good food with large portions, but service went down the drain. There is an 18% gratuity that is automatically applied to every order (doesn't matter if you're one person or a party of 10), and staff are taking advantage of this to not put in any effort. If you do eat here, expect not to get any service outside of ordering and getting your bill.