Death to Spontaneity & Fun @ Central Michel Richard
Had a very uncomfortable experience at the Central Michel Richard restaurant yesterday. We tried to do a walk-in at around 5:30pm to a largely empty restaurant for a party of four. I know they are usually busy, so we just wanted to give it a try.
Believe it or not, the Hostess actually said to us:
We can seat you in the dining room, but you have to be out in 1 hour.
I should have known right then and there that it was going to turn out to be a bad experience. I mean, that already showed rudeness and bad judgement. If the Hostess needed all the tables, then she should have just turned us away, or better yet, direct us to the bar! Plus, any good restaurateur knows that is not how you greet a patron. Central prides it self on a fine-dining type of restaurant, too bad the management is so sub-par.
But I was craving fried chicken, and I've visited Central quite often that I know if we just stuck to our entrees, we can accommodate. So we took the table.
Obviously this person has trust issues, because after we were all seated, the Hostess puffed her chest at us and AGAIN, repeated:
You know that means 6:30, right? We need you out no later than 6:45.
I am beginning to think God punishes the nice and the accommodating, because I again reassured her, no problem, we will be out by that time!!
But of course the Lady with Trust Issues proceeded to watch us like a hawk the entire hour, tactlessly averting eye contact whenever anyone in our party senses her relentless glare.
So at around 6:20pm, we asked for our check. The waitress brought us our check promptly, and said, "No dessert?" We were going to come up with a gentle excuse, and what happened next really blew us out of the water.
Before we could respond, she looked at her watch and said:
Yeah, you guys don't have much time.
I think one of my friends actually gasped at the blatant rudeness and insensitivity of it. The silence that immediately followed was obvious, and the waitress definitely felt it.
So of course my friend said in anger, "Sure, I'll take a look at the dessert menu."
At this time the waitress was quite nervous, so she walked away meekly to get the dessert menu for us.
Anyways, to make a long story short, we did not order dessert and we got out around 6:30pm. Still tipped our waitress well despite her snide remark because other than that, she did a decent job.
Oh Central Michel Richard, why did you have to ruin an otherwise wonderful evening? I will greatly miss your awesome fried chicken and meat loaf, as well as the perfect creamed spinach and bacon Brussels sprouts. Not only will I not be back, but will definitely not be planning any professional functions there again.
