Fed up with the service

September 23, 2010

Dear Sir,

Is there anyone else out there who is fed up to the back teeth of the restaurants on this Island? I am in the insurance industry and have to entertain clients on a regular basis and am completely fed up with the service, the food which ranges from average to really bad and all for completely over the top pricing. Have we become so immune to this that we have forgotten what good food and good service is? There is so little choice of restaurants that are (or should be) the calibre of eatery that we can take our clients to and basically these restaurants know that, so we have little choice but to accept it. My clients are often directors of large Fortune 500 companies, who are used to good dining experiences and very often express their disappointment at the mediocre offerings from our restaurants. They look at the prices and quite frankly expect a much better experience.

I would like to give you some recent examples of what I have experienced in the past couple of months (which have been fairly quiet, as far as the number of clients that I had to entertain). I will refrain from naming the restaurants:

Example #1: A restaurant that I had been using on a regular basis for well over a year, at least five or six times per month. They know me well and welcome me by name. When I arrived, my four clients had already arrived. The Maître d' advised me that they did not have a reservation for me (our meeting coordinator very rarely makes mistakes) and that they had advised my clients and seated them outside to have a drink. That on its own annoyed me as my clients were embarrassed. I asked if they could accommodate me and she said she would see what she could do. At that time the restaurant was one quarter full.

Half an hour later she advised she could accommodate my party and sat us down in the centre of the restaurant (every other time I have been there, I have been given a table by the window). We had dinner and the restaurant was never more than half full for the rest of the time we were there and there were three window tables free all night. That is not the way to treat a client who frequents their restaurant on a very regular basis. I will not be going back there. They were always a bit on the "pretentious" side anyway.

Example #2: I am not a regular visitor to this particular restaurant, however, I had been there a couple of times the week prior and had very much enjoyed the food. I went with my sister and my niece on a Saturday night this time. I ordered the sea bass Mediterranean style, which was delicious, however, the portion size was not enough to feed a child, let alone an adult. The kicker was the "special" fish which was wahoo. My sister ordered this which she thought was OK, nothing special, quite a small portion. The bill came and they had charged $45 for the special fish! Forty five dollars for a piece of wahoo which came with egg plant. About $7 more than their most expensive entree. I won't be going there again either. Diner, please be warned, that quite a few restaurants on the Island do this. You should always ask how much the "special" is before ordering it, especially if it's local fish.

Example #3: A restaurant that recently went through a facelift. Shame because it was fabulous before they changed it. I had the sole and it was so salty that it was inedible. I hate making a fuss with clients present, so did not send it back, just did not eat it. I will give them their dues in that they did ask if I had not like it when they took the plate away and I quietly told them no, they did refund it from the bill. I will use this restaurant again because historically they have always been a good restaurant, however, they are no longer consistently good and have cut down on their staff, so their service is not what it was.

Example #4: This well known restaurant is nearly always busy, so maybe my experiences are a one off, although I doubt it. I ordered a starter that was portrayed in the menu as being Japanese seaweed with lobster, crab and octopus. This was a $15 starter. What I was served was just awful and consisted of the seaweed (cant go wrong there) with two small pieces of lobster claw which obviously came right out of a can, a piece of something that was indescribable, presumably the octopus and ... the kicker ... three small pieces of imitation crab meat! I was appalled. The menu stated it was crabmeat, not imitation crabmeat. One of my guests had the special fish ($37) which was dry and tasteless. In this same restaurant a week earlier, I had to wait for over half an hour from asking for the bill to receiving it. The waiters were standing around looking in every direction except ours. This is another restaurant that is no longer on my "go to" list. Their standards are definitely slipping.

This is just a small snapshot of some the "best" restaurants on the Island. It's quite pitiful really. It's not until you go away, especially to the US, that you realise what good service and quality is and how truly bad it is here. Unfortunately, we have so little choice here and bad restaurants are rewarded for their poor food and service again and again, because we (corporate clients) have no choice but to use them. There are some good restaurants, but none of them is consistently good. There are a few of the restaurants on the Island that I am not able to frequent because they are just too expensive, so cannot comment on them.

Dinner at most restaurants on the Island is going to set you back on average at least a $100 per head, without wine. We should be offered better food and better service at these prices. Also, If these restaurants are going to charge 18 percent grats, then they need to provide much better service and have wait staff that can speak English. Diners should be informed by the wait staff that the special fish is going to cost more than fillet mignon! If they don't tell you, then ask!

FREQUENTLY DISAPPOINTED –FREQUENT DINER

City of Hamilton