Marina G.
Yelp
We've been to the Boston location a few times, which we love. Today we were at assembly and decided to stop in for dinner. Walked in, sat at the bar, others had recently gotten up and drinks were still there, no issue there of course. However it took about 15mins for someone to acknowledge us, and after clearing the drinks from in front of us, they did not spray down the bar. Menus were dropped and bartender walked away. By the time they made it back to us, we had already picked out beverages, apps and dinner.
The bar was about 80% full, I didn't count but from memory I'd say roughly 25 seats. Three bartenders on plus the manager was helping at service bar, not to mention the servers coming in and out of the bar constantly making their own drinks. It was super disorganized, you could tell there's no flow between the staff, no game plan, just everyone running around with tunnel vision.
The gentleman who took our order was definitely on something. He wrote our order down, had us repeat it back then he himself repeated it back to us and still somehow had it wrong. I'm not sure how that can happen, but it did. I asked him for a coke and he served it with about a quarter of the glass already empty. Now yes, refills are free, but that's not the point. The point is, how do you serve someone a beverage with so much room left in the glass? See picture for reference. No straws were given. There was a caddy in front of us that was low on straws and napkins, others around the bar were just empty. Now yes, we obviously reached for our own straws, but the point I'm making is when you go out for dinner, you do so to enjoy a meal prepared and served by somebody else. Even moreso when you're going somewhere that's more high end.
Food was ok which we were also surprised by as again, we love the Boston location, have never had a bad experience there. Our steaks were cooked properly but had no flavor. The Brussels sprouts were undercooked and hard, the loaded baked potato had not a single pinch of salt or any seasoning. I had forgotten to ask for bernaise sauce for my steak (my fault, no doubt) so I waited for one of the bartenders to check on us so I could order it. No one ever did. Our dinners were also dropped off, yet we had no silverware as the bartender who cleared our appetizer dishes did not replace any. He also never set us up with triangle napkins as other guests had around us. So we stared at our food for about 5 minutes before we could get one of them to come over and give us silverware. We also noticed that the surface where they kept their salt/sugar rimmer is also where they dumped dirty glassware and shakers. So any time a dirty item was put down next to it and droplets were flying, some were landing in the salt and sugar.... which then were getting rimmed onto new drinks, spreading all those germs. NASTY!
We are so disappointed as we absolutely love Ruth's Chris and look forward to every visit. We understand ever since covid, good help is hard to find, people don't want to work etc. But I bartended for eleven years in high end and high volume establishments. I, as any seasoned restaurant employee, know a disaster when I see one. The staff seriously needs to go over steps of service, zoning, organization, sanitation and teamwork. I very rarely tip less than 20% and genuinely feel guilty for doing so, but this was just that bad. If you want the full experience, go into the city. Assembly location was a huge leftdown.
