Kelly K.
Yelp
Last night (Saturday, 8/2), a group of us had reservations at Mia Bella for 8pm. A few of us had been to your establishment before, and some of us were first-timers. We were looking forward to an evening of great food and atmosphere and exceptional service.
However, our experience was sub-par -- and this is probably too generous a rating.
Our reservation for 8pm did not get us seated until after 8:30. We were seated outside in front of the restaurant.
We had a waiter named Ergus/Argus (?) who approached our table and was friendly, but unfortunately, was very lacking in service or attentiveness.
We ordered drinks and 2 members of our table did not receive their drinks at all.
When reminding our waiter of this when he came back much later (he would disappear for very long intervals), he did not recall my brother in law ordering his Johnny Walker drink. So this was ordered again and took another 15 minutes to receive.
My brother ordered a diet coke, which also took 15 minute to get.
My sister wanted a latte while we were waiting for appetizers to come out. Because our waiter was not coming in to check on us, she asked a passing wait staff member who was giving us salad if she could get a latte. The girl responded, "You can let your waiter know." My sister responded, "He has not come back in some time."
The girl left our table, my sister waited some more and then decided to just walk into the restaurant from our outside table and ordered a latte at the bar. She was asked by the bartender why she did not just ask her waiter and my sister told her that we had not seen him and she just wanted to get a latte.
We ordered bread service with olive oil and Italian herbs. We were given bread but the oil had nothing in it at all. No herbs. It was kind of gross to just dip the bread in plain oil. Our waiter never seemed to notice that he did not provide the Italian herbs with the oil.
The entrees took over 40 minutes to arrive.
Again, our waiter was not checking in on us and was not available for us to ask for drink refills, etc
Again, two people at our table did not receive their entrees with the rest of us. We sat and waited for them to get their food, but it took another 20 minutes for their dishes to arrive.
At that point, we asked for parmesan cheese, which was sprinkled over our dishes that were now quite cold.
There was no apology from our waiter or staff for the delay.
The table next to us had a party of 8. They were seated after us and were served efficiently and left almost 30 minutes before us.
We were never asked if we wanted to see a dessert menu or if we wanted coffee or after dinner drinks.
We were given our tabs and expected to tip for substandard service. I gave 18% against my better judgement, but I can tell you that I did not expect such inferior service.
Your establishment presents itself as classy and on the higher end of service and experience, and we definitely did not get that impression last night from the service that we received. I am happy to pay higher prices when I feel that I am at a restaurant that provides notable food and service, making the dining experience exceptional and overall pleasant. Ours felt stressful and very disjointed.
There are a lot of great restaurants in this area, sharing the sidewalk with yours. It would seem paramount to do everything right to set yourselves apart when in such close proximity to very similar competition.
