3 /5 Maria Nacusse: Good food, bad service.
We visited this restaurant on 01/02 for brunch. We put our names on the waitlist and waited outside in the sun. As locals, the weather was cold so we did not mind waiting in the sun. There was an outdoor table available for four people, which matched our party size. We asked if we could sit there, assuming it was open because it was in direct sunlight. The hostess explained she would first need to call everyone ahead of us on the list, and if no one wanted it, we could take it, which seemed completely fair.
We waited, but no one was called and the table remained empty. After some time, we asked again and were eventually told we could sit there. By then, we were likely next in line anyway, as everyone else waiting had arrived after us.
As soon as our coffee and lemonade were brought out, several bees swarmed our table. Two even fell into the lemonade. After a few minutes, another group of bees arrived, clearly attracted by the sweet drinks, and it became uncomfortable and honestly scary, as we were worried about getting stung.
I explained the situation to the hostess and asked if we could move to an empty table inside that was available and fit our party size exactly. She said that wasn’t possible because she would have to call everyone on the list first. I explained again that we were being surrounded by bees. Her response was that we had asked to sit outside. I mentioned there were no bees when we sat down.
She said she would check with the manager and came back saying she was sorry, but that it was “Mother Nature” and there was nothing they could do. At that point, we had already ordered our food and it was likely about to come out, so I asked how she suggested we proceed, thinking maybe they could package it to go. Only then did she tell us we could move to the indoor table.
We were not asking for anything unreasonable. Expecting guests to remain seated at a table surrounded by bees is not acceptable. While we understand that no one can control nature, bees are common, and at the very least we should have been warned. More importantly, there was no reason for the hostess to be rude or dismissive, some basic empathy and courtesy would have gone a long way.
There is clearly room for improvement in how seating is managed, especially since we continued to see open tables inside while people were still waiting outside. The food itself was tasty and our server was very kind, which makes it disappointing that the overall experience was negatively impacted by the hostess’s poor attitude and lack of people skills.
