Angelina E.
Yelp
I struggled with if I should write a review or not, and decided after 1 week, I needed to write this review.
First off, let me start by saying the food at Cafe Baci is good. I've been here twice and in previous visits, my party and I were happy with the food and service. Enough so, we decided that for my brother's birthday we'd celebrate and have dinner here.
I called the night before (Friday) for reservations for Saturday at 6:30pm. Originally the girl told me they don't take reservations. I told her we were a party of 13. She turned to her manager, and I heard him say - that's fine. He'll hold a table for us. I said, "Great" and "Thank You" ...BUT they didn't take my name.
So the next day, I called them at 1pm to confirm that they were holding at table for us. I gave them my name and reconfirmed it was a party of 13 for 6:30pm. The manager replied "Yes, please be sure your party gets here by 6:30pm". GREAT!
Since I knew they had limited parking, I asked my party to get there before 6:30pm. Most of my party got there at 6:15pm. Note: my family drove in from Flushing - 40 minute drive for them.
So, I checked in. The girl at the front seemed confused. I told her we spoken to a manager, and she reiterated they didn't take reservations. Grrr. In any case, she said they're waiting for a big party to leave, and then we can get seated.
30 minutes later...NOTHING. I went back in a few times, and they said...still waiting for that table to leave, but they've been given a check.
7:45pm, went back in, and I voiced frustration that complained if it was going to take this long, they should have told us that the wait was going to be over an hour! All they say was "Sorry, we're doing our best".
By 8:00pm, still nothing. So we just left, and went to the Mediterranean restaurant next door, who tooked us in right away. Which btw, has great food and were very nice.
Net, net... if you have a large party, don't go to Cafe Baci. Horrible experience.
How do you make 13 people wait over an hour for a table...and NOT tell them that it was going to be that long. In my party, we had my 75 year old parents and my 4 year old nephew.
If they had said to me, "Sorry, we don't have a table for you now, and it will be at least an hour wait. Do you mind waiting?", then at least my party and I could have made a choice to stay or leave. But they did not give us that choice. Instead they made us think we were going to be seated soon.
This is POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Could we have left earlier? Yes! But we were told, that the other table would be leaving soon. I had even suggested, if they needed to break us up in different tables, we'd be fine with that. They said they'd ask the manager. But he never came out to talk to us.
Also want to note, they had 4 tables free, that they had said was reserved for a wedding rehearsal dinner that looked to seat 25, and couldn't seat us there...which was next to the table they were waiting to leave. Those tables were empty for at least 30 minutes- no exaggeration. We could very well have finished eating by the time that party arrived.
So, although I have no complaints over their food- they are getting 1star for poor customer service., which I think is generous for this situation.