Peppercorn's Grill
Hartford, CT
One of the first things that we did when we
moved to Hartford was to scour
the local papers for reviews of good
restaurants -- especially popular ones
that had gotten consistently good
reviews. So far, in the Good Restaurant
Experiences Arena, we're 0 for 3. There was
Hot Tomato's, a place where Avery's
mom has eaten many times and has always
had excellent service...except for
the one time we went with her. There
was the Civic Cafe, where despite
paying nearly $100.00 for dinner for two, the
service was deplorable. Food
great, service deplorable. I have always
maintained that I would rather have
just-good food and excellent service rather
than excellent food and just-good
service. There's something about rationing
one glass of water throughout
a 1 1/2-hour meal (because you just
know that they're not going to
refill it) that causes me way too much undue
tension.
And then there was Peppercorn's Grill, which
is in a class all by itself
at this point. Peppercorn's is a charming little
Italian restaurant that
had gotten stellar reviews of both it's food and
service. Since it was only
a few blocks away from the Bushnell where
we were going to see Les Miserables
last Friday evening, we decided to give it a try.
It had been closed for
a couple of months due to a fire in their
kitchen, so we were surprised to
find out that it was open when we called. Upon
arriving, we discovered that
only a couple of hours before, they had
literally just opened for
the first time in two months. Stupidly, we
thought "what good timing!" instead
of "uh-oh."
Even though it had just reopened, the place
was already full. We got a table
for two, were provided with water and a
plateful of bread, and got our menus.
As the minutes ticked by, we looked at the
menu, decided what we wanted to
eat, decided what we wanted to drink, and
waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually we stopped one of the waitstaff who
happened to be walking by,
who finally got our waiter to at least make an
appearance at our table. We
finally placed our order and when we did, let
the waiter know that we were
trying to get to an 8:00 show, and asked if he
could possibly keep in mind
that we wanted to be done by 7:20 or so.
Warning Bell # 1: when
the waiter's response to that request is a
smirk, and eyeroll, and a sarcastic
"I'll see what I can do", there may be trouble
brewing on the horizon.
We got our appetizers fairly quickly, and they
were quite good. After the
appetizers were finished, however, there was
a lull in the conversation.
There was a lull because we had said
everything that we could think of saying
about our respective days at work. We had
said everything we could think
of saying because we were abandoned,
literally abandoned, by the
waitstaff. For a lo-oo-ng time. As I glanced
around the restaurant I noticed
that even though it was full, no one was
eating. Other people were desperately
looking around. We were getting tense, and
there was nothing to do but drink
ice water, which was served in those tall, thin
"I'm a Modern Restaurant
Glass" glasses that don't hold but 5 ounces of
water. The ice water soon
ran out and the white-shirted woman who
poured us the water when we first
sat down seemed to be under orders to not
pour water for any established
diners -- only for new diners. The
established diners had to get water
from the grey-shirted waitstaff. I started
thinking desperately: where
is our grey-shirted waiter? Where is Avery's
Old Fashioned that he ordered
10 minutes ago? Why can't the white-shirted
lady pour us any more water?
She's just standing there! And I'm thirsty! Not
to mention we ordered our
entrees 25 minutes ago! What if we don't have
time to eat?
We started summoning other
waitstaffpersons, as we thought that perhaps
our
poor waiter had fallen down a well or perhaps
taken ill. When our waiter
finally came back with Avery's Old Fashioned,
he said to us, "Sorry, I was
taking care of a party of 15." Warning
Bell # 2: When your waiter
blatantly doesn't give a shit about you, you can
just throw having a good
time out the window. We asked him
how much longer the entrees would
be. He said he would check and disappeared
again. This time we managed to
get the attention of the maitre'd and asked her
if we could plee-aa-se have
some more water as we were dying of thirst at
this point (remember, we're
having a heat wave here on the East coast)
and could she be a dear and check
on our entrees as we were going to a show at
8:00 PM and our waiter was oh,
we don't know, hiding somewhere in the
restaurant in the style of Where's
Waldo?
She was mean. She put her nose in the air
and informed us that this was the
staff's very first time "on the floor" after being
away for two months, and
they have a new computer system, and the
kitchen is backed up, and perhaps
she could give us some dessert on the house
since we had been waiting so
long. When we brought to her attention that we
hadn't even gotten our entrees
yet, she responded "And what time is
it? 7:05? And you're going to
the Bushnell? For an 8:00 show? You
have PLENTY of time for
DESSERT." <Insert her turning on
heel and stalking away here>
Eep. Definitely an Eat Dessert On The House
Or Else situation. At that point,
we were looking for more of an answer like
"20% off the total amount of the
bill." For Christ's sake, some people don't
even order dessert.
<I happened to notice a party of two that had
been sitting without any
attention whatsoever for a good amount of
time, just like us. I watched the
gentleman grow more and more silently
annoyed until he eventually gave up,
threw money down onto the table and stormed
out. Just like in the movies!>
So the minutes continue ticking by, and finally
our entrees appear...at 7:15.
We ask our waiter (Oh, he is alive!) for
the check even before he
can set the plates on the table and start
inhaling the food. The maitre'd
comes by and asks how everything is. We
glare at her, hunched over our plates
as we shovel the food into our mouths. She
makes the correct assumption that
we won't have time for the Dessert on the
House (we told you!), so she wants
to give us a gift certificate for desserts instead.
(Enough with the desserts
already! How about paying for our drinks or
one of our entrees?) Avery then
tried to be nice to her by saying that it's not so
much that the kitchen
was backed up, it's just that if we were
informed at the get-go that things
were running slow, it may have made us feel a
little more sympathetic. She
has just snottily started her "We've been
closed for two months" speech
when I all of a sudden notice that the
asparagus that was supposed
to be in my Penne and Asparagus dish is
missing. And what are these mushrooms
doing here? Is that green stuff...spinach?
Blech! Where's the cream sauce?
The meat tastes like....salted...cod? I know I
would never order a dish like
this, but in my haste to eat before we had to
run I didn't even notice until
I was halfway through.
At that point Avery said to the Maitre'd, "I don't
mean to be obnoxious here,
but wasn't this dish supposed to have
asparagus and crispy artichokes?" The
waiter (who happened to be walking by the
table -- how convenient now that
we're about to leave) and the
ever-snotty maitre'd both say "Yeah."
Mr. Waiter adds, "There's an explanation for
that too." "We reverted back
to the old menu" they both say in
unison. Warning Bell # 3:
When
the restaurant serves you a dish totally
different from the one you ordered
and doesn't even bother informing you of that
fact, it's time to get the
hell out of there and never go back.
To this day that whole entree issue still
bothers me. I mean, it's
one thing to have erratic and inconsistent
service after being closed for
two months (I'll give them that, even though
the thoughts that run through
my mind are along the lines of "but this
waitstaff has done this
before...what, did they lose their motor
skills after not working for
two months?") but it's quite another to
know that you will have slow
service and neglect to inform people of
that fact, or get them a drink
on the house, or at the very least keep their
water glasses full! And
serving someone a totally different dish than
what they ordered? That's just
inexplicable, especially at a restaurant with
entrees in the $20 range. As
for the multitude of excuses we heard? News
flash! We don't care! We don't
care that you can't figure out the new computer
system! It's not our problem
that you've all forgotten how to wait tables! We
don't care that you just
reopened! Ever heard of a test run? As long as
I'm paying close to $100 for
a dinner for two, I DON'T CARE!
As we were getting up from the table, the
maitre'd brought us a gift certificate
for exactly two desserts and two coffees.
Excluding gratuity.
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