Bob D.
Yelp
Bad experience with 2024 Mothers Day brunch. We were redirected to Giaola after our original restaurant wasn't able to open for Mothers Day. I thought, "Well, this is a fun chance to try a new place!" Although the restaurant wasn't busy, we had several problems with our service:
1. There were large gaps of time in our server checking in with us. (12 minutes and 16 minutes were two I clocked.) Even though our party was 4 diners, there were other tables of similar or smaller size who got their courses served before us.
2. Our coffee went unchecked and un-refilled most of the morning, until I waved somebody down to go look for a refill warmup.
3. They brought a bottle of sparkling wine to start the brunch, but left it sitting unopened on the table. We had to flag them down 3 times--once to bring an ice bucket, again several minutes later to uncork it, and again several minutes after that to bring glasses for it. The servers kept scurrying away before we could finish our request. We sat there looking at that unopened bottle of sparkling wine for 23 minutes before we got to take our first sip.
4. No one was clearing plates during the long gaps of time between courses. So when staff would show up with several plates for the next course, they just stood there looking confused because they couldn't see anywhere to set the plates down. We had to help gather all the dirty dishes from the prior course, hold them in our laps, wait for the new plates to be set down, and then hand our dirty dishes to staff.
5. After the final delay, a guy who looked like the manager stopped by our table and hurriedly dropped off the check but didn't stick around to ask us how our meal was. And he did not leave a pen. So after another few minutes of nobody stopping by, I got up from my seat and approached the first employee I found, to ask them for a pen. Everybody seemed trained to avoid eye contact, walk quickly past the customers, and disappear into the back of house.
If you like "okay" food and lots of sitting around, this is the place for you.