Alyssa N.
Yelp
TLDR: Racist staff. DO NOT eat here if you're not white- the mediocre food is not worth it.
My boyfriend and I ate here yesterday around 4-5pm. I had never ate at a Serafina's before so my bf was excited to take me here as he's had takeout from the 61th st location and he's dined in at another location. We were seated right away. Our server was a brunette girl with glasses. It took her about 15-20 mins to take our food order. Initially, I gave her the benefit of the doubt- there were a lot of occupied tables. Everyone else eating in the restaurant was white besides one or two Asians, but they were also sitting with other white people. We ordered burrata w/ cherry tomatoes, spaghetti carbonara, and cacio e pepe. The waiter asked us if we wanted the burrata to come out first and I said yes. It took forever for the burrata to come out so I started to regret my decision.
What we noticed was that the tables around us were getting speedy and great service... and we weren't. The servers/bussers all seemed to be attentive to everyone but us. This was apparent when my bf's water glass became empty while waiting for our entrees. My bf wanted more water so we were trying to grab the attention of our server or anyone else, but no one was looking our way. There was a guy walking around with a water pitcher, and he came to top off the waters of the table right next to us, a table of two white girls. He looked at our table and just walked away. There was no way he didn't see our glasses bc the tables of two are almost uncomfortably close to each other. No one refilled our glasses for about 10-15 mins until our server came back and got us more water. There was no way that only our server is the only one that can get us water. In all other restaurants, people are constantly walking around making sure everyone has enough water. It's not something that we should hunt down someone for. And it's even crazier to me that my bf finished his water again, and AGAIN, no one came to refill our glasses, meanwhile the tables next to us were constantly getting topped off with water and being asked if they needed anything. No one except our server asked us if we needed anything, and she rarely came to check up on us.
It was another long wait to get our entrees. Once we got our entrees, my bf's cacio e pepe definitely did not have enough cheese and needed more- it was mostly just pepper. The carbonara was okay without cheese but cheese definitely would've been nice, so I wanted some, too. We tried to grab the attention of ANYONE and failed miserably, so we ended up just giving up and just kept eating because we were starving. It wasn't until another 15-20 mins in, when my bf only had two bites left, that the curly haired guy randomly came up to us and asked if we wanted cheese. By then, we were pretty annoyed. Our server came up to us and told her that her shift was ending, so another server would finish taking care of us (a bald headed guy with a beard; I think his name was Connor). She told us she would refill our waters before we go and she never did. My bf finished his food, and I wasn't done eating, but I just wanted to go, so we tried to get Connor's attention for the check, but he wasn't looking our way at all. And when we finally interacted with him for the first time for the check, he came over with the card machine and automatically pressed on the 25% tip option, which is CRAZY to me b/c he wasn't even our server and we had to flag him down for the check.
My bf and I are definitely not the type of customers to be impatient or complain and be rude. When we initially sat, the restaurant was full, but we had been sitting there for so long d/t slow service that there was a period time when there were empty tables, so therefore, the poor service could not be excused with the restaurant being too busy. I have worked in restaurants/food service in the past, and it's definitely a problem that we struggled to find someone to attend to us, even our own server. We hate being those people that obnoxiously flag down a server or yell across the room "Excuse me!" It's not something we should have to do if the workers were just paying attention. Anyone that works in food service with common sense can tell when a table needs help when the people are just sitting there, not talking to each other, looking around the restaurant waiting for someone to lock eyes with them. No one was looking at us. It seemed like everyone was trying to avoid us as if we were obnoxious high schoolers that couldn't even afford to eat there.
We are very non-confrontational people, but looking back we definitely should have said something to the staff or asked to speak to management, because we really had an uncomfortable experience. I don't want to assume that Serafina in it's entirety is a racist establishment, but it's evident that this location will only cater to white people, so we will not be coming here again or supporting any of the other locations.