I had such an interesting Valentine's Day I just had to blog about it!! All the adventure started when Don and I got to Brick Oven. It has become a tradition with us to go to Brick Oven on Valentine's Day and wait for an hour (sometimes even more) to get seated and then eat and go to a movie. Well, this year we had an hour and 40 minute wait. We ran a couple of errands and then returned. While we were waiting, I grabbed Don's blackberry and started checking facebook. I saw my husband's nice status ("Don is proclaiming to the facebook world that he's in love with his wife! Happy Valentine's Day!!") and thought I should comment on it. So, I wrote "I'm in love with you too!!!" and hit comment. Well, for whatever reason, it added that comment to EVERYONE'S status that already had a comment on it. I freaked out!!! I had just written on approximately 15 people's status that I was in love with them. Don is trying to calm me down, telling me at least it was something nice... Needless to say, it didn't work! He is frantically trying to reload facebook to see if it was just an error. It wasn't. So, then we start going through the process of deleting the comment. The problem is that on a blackberry it is a long, drawn out task and it takes forever to do it once, let alone 15 or so times!!! I was still doing this when we were called back to our table. This is when the second part of our night began...
We could tell right away that our server wasn't going to be all we had hoped for. Is it too much to ask that when you go to a nice restaurant that you should expect good service? Well, it never happens to Don and I. Every Valentine's Day it is the same thing. We've tried many different places too! Well, this time our server was trying to rush us through every process. We just waited an hour and a half for our table, I was going to take my time and enjoy myself!!! On top of that, I was feverishly trying to save myself from total humiliation on facebook!! I refused to order until I had everything deleted. (Thankfully my brother called and I had him log on as me and finish. Whew!!!!) Without going into every detail, the waiter only refilled Don's water once, even though he sat there for 80% of his meal with an empty cup, he tried to take our appetiser from us even though we had at least a third of it left (and we're still eating!!), when he did refill my pop, he sat it on the end of the table and just slid it down, saloon style, to my end of the table (thankfully not into my lap). Our food was okay, not what I wanted because they took that off the menu, oh, and increased the prices too!! If that wasn't bad enough... the worst is still yet to come!!!
It was finally time to pay and get out of there. He brought us our check and Don gave him his credit card. We sat, waiting and waiting and waiting. Finally our server comes back and tells us that they are having trouble with their credit card machine and wants to know if we have another form of payment. Don tells him no, not unless they can take a check. Well, no they couldn't do that. (I don't carry that much cash on me!) He disappears for a long time and comes back again saying it is still not working. So, he says he will go talk to the manager and try again. He finally comes to our table with one of the old credit card slips and has written down our credit card information and we just need to sign it. We asked to speak to a manager and she acts as if she could care less what problems we had that night and barely apologizes for the fact we waited 40 minutes to pay!! During all of this time you would have thought maybe we would have been offered a free dessert or at least a drink refill, but nope. We sat there with nothing. Don and I were so furious that we just sign the slip and got out of there. I had wanted to go get smoothies from the mall, but it took so long to pay that we didn't have time. I was so upset!!! They had ruined our meal. We both decided to not let them ruin our entire night, so we went and got drinks from Starbucks and went to a movie.
We chose "Confessions of a Shopaholic" at 10:00. So, you would think we would be safe at the movies right? Wrong!! The previews had started and I went to put my phone on silence and noticed my mom had tried calling. My parents were watching my kids, so I immediately called them back. She was calling because Brick Oven had called there, waking them up! They needed us to call them back because our credit card wasn't going through. Why? They wrote the number down wrong!!!!! Yes, after all of that, they were still ruining our night!! My mom told them that we were at a movie and they said it wasn't a big deal, we could call on Sunday with the correct number. So, Don and I settle in for the movie. You would think our story would end there, but it doesn't!!! About a half hour into the movie, Don's phone starts ringing. It was my mom again. Brick Oven had called our house again, waking everyone up, again! It turns out that if the transaction waits overnight to be completed, it will cost the restaurant an additional $50. So, we really needed to call them back before midnight so they wouldn't have to pay the extra money. So what you say? Well, if it hadn't been for my parents at our house, we would have just told them too bad also, but with them continually calling my house, we felt that we had to finish it then so my family could sleep. So Don left the movie and went to call Brick Oven. Don was gone for a few minutes and came back. He had talked/yelled at our waiter and at the end of the conversation our meal was free, but only because Don was mean. Well, after a while, Don calmed down and felt bad for how he treated the waiter on the phone, so he left the movie, again, and called back and gave him the correct credit card number. We finished watching the movie and went home, trying to salvage the rest of our night.
I'm still not finished with Brick Oven yet. I intend to call back and speak to another manager about our evening. I still can't believe how poorly everything went. I have never been so horrified by an experience at a restaurant in my life. And that is saying a lot because Don and I have horrible luck with restaurants.
Oh, by the way, I loved the movie and Don enjoyed what parts he did get to see. And we will never go back to Brick Oven!!
2 comments:
Oh my!! That is absolutely craziness!!! I hate to hear that about Brick Oven because that was one of our favorites there. You would of thought they could of just cancelled it all out and waited until Sat. to start all over. Keep us updated as to what all happens :).
I would have had you mom take the phone off the hook and let them get a busy signal as they kept trying to call you--- but you guys are nicer then I...=)
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