Ian M.
Yelp
I cannot recommend Colony Club. Perhaps they will improve. My wife and I had a late dinner on a weeknight, 8pm on Thursday. We were looking forward to it. We had traveled to Palm Springs, joined by our little dog, for a business trip extended for a long weekend. Our experience at this venue was a disappointment, and I say that as a relatively easy grader if you look at my posts here in general. I wish I could say something else. As my wife said, at this price point you expect better.
The initial impression was positive. This is a place that signals classiness, or, in a less positive light, privilege -- you feel as if you are entering a space where people who have the means to golf on exclusive courses would come afterward. The truth is I did not grow up going to restaurants such as this, or, for that matter, restaurants other than fast food, or on a special occasion a chain establishment such as Red Lobster. I am not sure my family would have felt anything other than awkward in the city of Palm Springs in general. I can afford to dine here now, again for a special occasion and not on a regular basis. But I would be foolish not to wish for an experience worth that expense. To reiterate, walking in, we felt good. People were enjoying themselves by a fire pit as you would picture in a television advertisement for a fire pit.
The food was fine. We had eaten quite a bit earlier in the day, at a late lunch in neighboring La Quinta. We also had chips and salsa and sat outside at our Air BnB. That meant we ordered only two mains and a dessert, no starters. We also had a glass of wine each. We split the entrees, the seabass and the Impossible (vegetarian) meatloaf. My wife does not eat meat, and I am trying to eat less. We enjoyed both items. The seabass was prepared perfectly, with crispy skin. The meatloaf could not be distinguished from animal based protein sources, which is a description of praise, and I in particular have consumed quite a bit of the manufactured substitutes for meat, including in meatloaf form; this iteration was savory and dense and dark. The wine was good. I selected a rarity on menus, an orange wine, which had a bit of carbonation. The dessert, a butterscotch pudding, was sweet and creamy. With respect to what we ate, then, we have no complaints, and, indeed, I would be complimentary.
The problem was the service. My wife put herself through school as a waitress, and she notes that when she assesses the treatment we receive. I was a theatre usher in the summer, and that involved filling many bags of popcorn. I don't like it when people overreact about service on social media. Someone who is slow with a glass of water is not someone who ought to be condemned. We all should have reasonable expectations. In this instance, everything was slow or wrong. Three people waited on us. They were all nice enough. For that matter, I would chalk up the mishaps to management and not rank and file. They don't have their systems running as they ought to. They forgot the wine. They brought the wrong dessert. Our observation is the issue was not limited to us; it was neither idiosyncratic nor discriminatory. The people at the table behind us complained directly to the waiter and requested their check earlier than would be normal if all were well. If you scroll through the reviews, which I did after the evening and not before, you see a pattern. I went in without any bias, since I had not read what others put up, and my impression is not "confirmation bias," but it is apparent we are not alone.
That is my summary of Colony Club. Nonetheless, in a spirit of generosity, I'm selecting three stars for the rating. It may well be that when you, the reader, visit, they will have addressed these concerns. (And all three wait staff were friendly and gracious. To use the vernacular, this place just didn't have it together.)