Melanie L.
Yelp
My family and I frequented this location for a good 6 years straight since we lived in the neighborhood and even drove to it at least once weekly for several years after after moving to Castro Valley. We stopped frequenting and began dining solely at their sister location in Alameda about 3-4 years ago and every time I walk into this location I am reminded why.
We were greeted and seated by a red haired waitress who had an issue with us sitting at the community table which we prefer since it is by the window looking out onto Grand st. Okay, not a big deal, usually isn't a problem otherwise, but proceeded to tell another party who walked in after "feel free to sit anywhere you'd like!"
I will note, only one other person was seated in the entire restaurant and already had their food when we walked it.
Once seated, another family was seated. We waited to put in an order. Another woman sat at the bar and our server immediately went to this person at the bar and began chatting the woman up, and although this woman sitting at the bar was on Facetime with someone... Our server decided she would take her order... The woman who had JUST sat down before taking ours... She then decides to skip and walk around our table and go take the order of the other party who was also seated after us but before the woman at the bar meaning our order was going in after two parties who arrived and were seated after ours... But it gets worse.
I put in my order and had to take a call upon completing my portion of the order, however, my daughter was still seated and placing her order and confirmed my thin crust mushroom pizza order with the server.
5 minutes after my call, our server returns to "confirm" my thin crust order... that I had already put in... And proceeds to advise me she did not put it in because I took a call and that because of this she was unable to confirm my preference of thin versus deep crust, although she asked my daughter who confirmed that yes, I wanted a thin crust pizza. She walks back several minutes later to confirm now for the third time that I want mushroom... and then allegedly is about to put it in, is distracted yet again by two more customers who came in.
At this point, our drinks (an Apple juice and Arnold Palmer) have been sitting on the bar and still not brought to our table. Since we have now been sitting 20-25 minutes and our order hasn't even made it into the system according to our server I'm ready to go because it's been made abundantly clear we are not a priority.
I was kind enough to let her know we were leaving but she decides to call out "oh! I need you to take care of (pay for) your drinks" so I remind her that she never actually brought us the drinks she wants us to pay for and walked out.
I can't tell if it's a staffing issue... or if the neighborhood has simply become so gentrified that it no longer needs to serve minorities, but my half white daughter pointed out to me that it seemed she took and served and pandered to every white party who walked in after us and only went out of her way to have an issue with our table.
Other occasions years back I have had to reach out to management out of embarrassment of raving about such an amazing restaurant and bringing out of town guests only to have the rudest service.
The last time I had decent or the once stellar service at this particular location was at their anniversary party that I attended with my eldest to which of course had service and food at their absolute best because... Well, who comes to celebrate mediocrity?
All the regular staff we knew and loved has gone with the wind and because we love this menu we spend every weekend at the Star on Park in Alameda and only happened in here today because we were down the street at Fairyland and hungry. Never again.
