[quote=CA renter]Contentment is the key to happiness . Keeping expectations low = happiness. Best to have a bucket list of things you’ve already done, or already have, IMO.[/quote]
so i was on yelp looking at reviews of the Blackbird Tavern which is great by the way) and i came across this review which made me laugh and weep. it’s kind of long, and im not saying it’s necessarily worth reading…but, it made me want to find the girl who wrote it, and yell at her. not sure what i’d yell, but something about life, and living it, soemthing I might very well yell at myself… the review…
I don’t candy coat anything so here are true facts about my first and only visit to Blackbird. When reading bad reviews on Yelp, I have learned to take them with a grain of salt because they tend to be littered with biased opinion (which is fair considering that is the point of this forum) so I will do my best to stick to the facts.
I went on October 15th, it was a Tuesday. I know exactly when we were there because it was my birthday. I wish desperately I had checked it out before using my first time visit on what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year. Excuse me for having very high happiness expectations on the anniversary of my birth.
Accompanying me on this dinner were my parents, best friend and her mom. We arrived and were seated immediately, it was about 6:30 in the evening. I don’t need to mention the decor and rustic hipster crap everywhere. It’s cute, we get it. The first thing my dad said was how small the font was on the menu. Yes, he wears glasses and is over 50, but why exclude this demographic from being able to read and order for themselves? Ultimately it just pissed him off and made him feel old and nobody wants that. Mom ordered the steak medium rare, dad ordered the chicken, my friend and I ordered the special “lasagna”, friend’s mom ordered the burger. As a table we ordered the Brown Bag Special and cheese and crackers. Mom and I ordered some drink with rum, lime, and mint per the server’s recommendation. Dad and Tracy ordered beers.
Appetizers were both good, if forced to go back I would stick to ordering those and water. Drinks were fine, nothing to get excited about. Mom’s steak was too rare, I may have heard faint mooing from her plate. Dad’s chicken was cooked fine, but tasted like nothing. The lasagna was two pieces of pasta resembling a napkin, swimming in a meat sauce and accompanied by green tomatoes. This dish may have been dreamed up by a recovering anorexic, because it certainly could not fill up a hungry adult. I was not going to leave hungry, so I had them switch it for the burger. The burger that friend’s mom ordered was undercooked, (mine was cooked well as requested) it comes with bacon and gouda which sounds like a recipe for success but was somehow disappointing. I never thought I would find myself in a situation wherein bacon is not awesome, but I suppose anything is possible.
We told our server all of our woes, and she was apologetic and willing to listen. I hated telling her that we were unhappy, but I also hated that I was not having the greatest dinner ever. She put my mom’s steak back on the grill so it was edible and took my excuse for lasagna off the bill. I believe they also gave us 25% off the total bill. The owner came out to talk to us, and I gave him all of our feedback. I don’t remember a sincere apology from him. He just seemed upset that things weren’t going well (I know the feeling) almost as if this has been happening frequently… I work in customer service, I know it’s not fun to hear negative comments but it’s not our fault we weren’t having a good time.
There are a lot of reviews on how terrible the service is, but this was actually the best feature of the whole experience. I wish I remembered her name but she was cute, curly hair, nice smile, super sweet. If people had bad service here, they did not have our server.
As far as the comments on high prices, that is up to the customer. For what we got, I thought it was too much. If this had been the show-stopping dinner I was expecting, this would not have bothered me.
I get that it is hard to please everyone, but when a restaurant fails to please an entire table…something is wrong. I might consider trying this place for lunch one day to see a different menu, but I will not have very high expectations.
I wanted so badly to like this experience and tried my best to stay positive, but instead I spent an hour writing a less than positive review.
