Caprice F.
Yelp
Where do I begin....
A friend and I made two attempts to eat here for brunch- yesterday (Sunday) and last Sunday. Last Sunday when we arrived at about 12:30pm, there was a sign on the door that said that they were "not going to serve any walk-ins and were only allowing people with reservations inside the restaurant." I have NEVER seen anything like that before, but through the windows, it was apparent that they were packed so we left.
We decided to try again for yesterday, now with a reservation. Our reservation was for 12:30pm. We arrived to check in at 12:18pm. The place again was packed but we were pleased to see that the sign from the previous week wasn't there. There was no one at the hostess station but there were about 12-15 people standing and sitting right at the entrance waiting to be seated. The restaurant is small so it was very disorganized. Again, where was the hostess???
Eventually a woman who may have been a manager came over and took our name and others. She added it to a list in a notebook and then walked away. I cannot stress enough how chaotic this was. Seriously, it was uncontrolled chaos.
As we continued to wait, I overheard and saw someone from a group that was waiting ask a man (let's call him "Steve") for an ETA for a table and pointed out that there were two open tables in the dining room. He immediately gave an excuse as to why they couldn't sit there but then two minutes later sat them at one of the tables. Steve didn't refer to the check-in book at all before seating them. What? To be fair, they had been there waiting since before we arrived so I wasn't made about that but it made no sense how their system worked, as there was no system.
My friend and I proceed to wait and asked a total of 3 times how long it would be. The first time we asked, "Steve" asked us if we had a reservation to which we replied we did and then he said he'd check on it and let us know, and we heard nothing else.
Mind you, no one was ever permanently standing at the hostess station and the manager and "Steve" kept walking over to the kitchen/bar area to hide and talk but not help. Also, please note that because no one was ever at the hostess station, no one was ever checking off the names on the reservation/wait list. No one was keeping any track of the reservations/tables or calling out names of parties at all. Seriously, AT ALL!
At 12:43pm, my friend and I decided that we would be leaving if we weren't seated at 12:45pm. My friend walked over to their "hiding place" and asked for an ETA. "Steve" said to her "you have 4 people, right?" My friend replied "no, just 2 people." He gave a brief excuse and then, like the other table earlier, changed his mind and took us to a table on the patio. WTH????!!!!!
This now makes the second time that I've seen this man only seat a party with a reservation only after they approach him to question the wait. What is the system here?! Do you even have a system?! Why take reservations if you have no actual intention to serve people with a reservation?! Make it make sense!
As we walked through the restaurant, which is beautiful in decor and ambiance, but tiny, I noticed how 75% of the tables we passed had no food and had parties of people waiting and staring.
We were seated and both us simultaneously decided that we didn't want to do any business with this establishment as the entire experience thus far was not good and we could tell that it would not improve. We immediately got up and left, but I chose to talk to the manager or "Steve" to advise.
The manager was nowhere in sight so I approached "Steve", who was back at the "hiding place" and as always, no one was at the hostess station. I told him that we were leaving because we found it unacceptable that we were only seated after we asked three times to be seated yet we came 12 minutes early for a reservation. He was quick to give the excuse, "we were waiting for that table to be cleaned off before we could seat you," but that was obviously a lie. I told him, "that's fine. I just wanted you to know that that table is available." And we left.
I have never seen anything like that ever before. We made two attempts to eat at Bloom Lounge. There won't be a third.