Dotty D.
Yelp
If given the option, I would give this restaurant a 0 star review,
Two weeks ago, I was in town visiting family when everyone decided they'd like to meet up for breakfast. Having eaten at the Buttery before, I suggested we make reservations there because it was our last morning in Boston, and the food at the Buttery had never let me down.
I got reservations for 11:45 am, and we were there by 11:30 am. Because we arrived early, we decided to get coffee (4 of them) and have our coffee outside since it was a beautiful day out. We placed our order with a very nice girl at the register and waited for our order to be called. You should know that the girl who took my order never asked for my name, so I kept listening for our order to be called out.
At one point, one of the items in my order was called out, a hot caramel latte, so I walked over to the barista making the coffee and asked if that was my order. She immediately responded with a curt, "I don't know. Is this what you ordered?" I said, "Yes." And she said, "Then this is your order." I asked her where the other things in the order were and she rolled her eyes and said, "These two coffees are the only things in the order." I said, "Oh, okay, then this must not be our order."
I asked her if our order would be out soon and she said, "What's your name?" I gave her my name but told her that the order would likely not have my name because the first girl never asked for it. She said she didn't know what to tell me, so I walked over to the register and asked another girl about our order. She went into the register and pulled up our order and said it would be out soon.
I thanked the girl for being helpful and patient and the other barista, the one who had rolled her eyes at me, started laughing and said, "Oh, well that's amusing." I looked at her and she shook her head at me.
I went to get napkins, and she started to talk to everyone behind the counter about me. I walked over to her and told her that she shouldn't be so miserable and that if she didn't like her job or helping people, she should just leave. She laughed out loud and continued to make comments, but I just went back outside with my family to wait to be called. My daughter, who went back in for some water, said the woman was still talking about everything when she went back in.
My family was finally called inside but were seated in the very back of the restaurant where the AC wasn't working because the windows and doors were wide open. It must have been 100 degrees back there. My sister, who was sweating profusely, asked if the AC could be turned up, but they said that the door needed to stay open for outside service. Nothing was done to help with the cooling of that back room for our entire meal.
After about thirty minutes, a server finally walked over and asked if we wanted water or drinks, so he brought us those and an order of fries, but after that one server, no one steady person attended us at our table.
About 15 minutes later, a woman came over to take our order. We waited for an hour with no request for additional drinks or apologies for the long wait. I eventually went over and asked if there was an estimate for when the food would be served, since it had been so long. In the end, we waited an hour in the heat to get our eggs, had no server asking if they could bring us anything and what's worse, we had to be the ones to get our own water at a nearby water station. So anytime someone in my family got thirsty, I stood up to get them water. The whole experience was a mess.
While it was not my first time at the Buttery, it was the first time for my sister, niece and daughters, and I was so embarrassed by the way everything turned out. From the start with our coffees, the heat, the wait for the food, the lack of attention once seated, having to be our own servers, and later, having to go up to ask for our bill, the whole thing was unpleasant.
I honestly believe our family had been punished for speaking out against the first very unhappy barista, and think it was extremely unprofessional of the South End Buttery to dismiss our whole party. All of this being said, I will no longer be patronizing at this business or recommending anyone to potentially have the same awful and embarrassing experience that I did at the South End Buttery.
