Daniel K.
Yelp
First off, I understand the Fairview only opened two weeks ago - I wrote this review with the short time since opening in mind.
While this place might have potential, it is currently severely lacking in consistent concept, service, food quality, and overall customer focus.
Given the updated interior and blue lighting it appears to me as if the targeted appearance is to be a little bit more upscale than your typical tavern. However, at the same time the food is served in cheap red plastic baskets. I don't think that necessarily makes sense but whatever - not too important to me.
An interesting side note, while a glass of Stella is priced similarly to other restaurants in center city, you do not get a pint but a 33cl glass (a pint has 47cl, bringing the actual price per pint to $10 at the Fairview). Again, not too big of a deal but odd and not what you would expect.
The servers were overwhelmed, slow, and not particularly attentive.
What really rubbed me the wrong way was the chef's pretentiousness combined with her failure to deliver on quality in preparation or seasoning.
We ordered a burger and the Pho French Dip sandwich. After requesting the burger to be well done (we've had food poisoning from an undercooked burger before and are since careful) we were informed that the chef refuses to cook burgers well-done. Her reason: "it's like serving a burnt brick of meat so we only do medium-well maximum". I generally disagree with this statement but after getting the "medium-well" burger I understood. The burger was burnt black on the outside while the inside was medium-rare, not medium-well. Ergo, I now know why she doesn't want to serve burgers well done - it probably would have actually been a black brick. We saw multiple burger orders being sent back, so this wasn't a one off.
Also - when was the last time a chef refused to cook a burger to your liking? I don't think this has ever happened to me before.
The Pho Sandwich we ordered was just as puzzling. Without dipping it was way too dry and borderline salty, with dipping it was so salty I could barely eat it let alone have more than 5 salty fries.
Lastly, if you just opened and this is your second Saturday with customers, how can there be no manager or owner on site checking in with customers? This is your time to get feedback, to learn what's working and what isn't and to make sure that the feedback is acted upon and changes are implemented as fast as possible. If you had someone there, I would have given you this feedback in person and not written a review. Maybe this review will "disappear" as well, but at least take this feedback and get better.
I'm still rooting for you to become another great place in the neighborhood but you have a lot of work to do. We will give you another chance in a month or two and, if things are better, I'll be more than happy to update my review.