I recently held an event at LaSerre in Albany. The food was good, however, the prices and pricing procedures of this restaurant were so horrible that the good food did not matter in the end. The tentative headcount for the party was 40, which ended up being 19 for the actual event. Prior to the event, the owner stated she could ""work with us"" based on this number. I obviously should have asked her to clarify this. At the end of the event when I went to pay the bill she clarified that that meant was she was going to charge me for 30 people. I can understand this practice when it comes to the entrees, as a lot of restaurants do this. However, not having stated this prior to the event, she charged us for 30 people for everything they served, including coffee (at $3.50/person) although maybe 10 people had coffee. When I asked for leftovers to be taken home, once I found out that I was paying for 30, I was offered 4 pieces of cake. If they had bought food for 30 then I should have had 11 entrees, soup, salad, hors d' oeuvres, cake, and coffee left over (all of which I was charged for 30). The hors 'd oeuvres alone (which were at the owner's suggestion), consisted of cheese cubes, cut up vegetables, and deviled eggs, and were close to $200. There were not even enough hors d' oeuvres there to feed 30 people. The owner had also suggested having soup, and never added that that was an addtnl. $4.95/person. The dessert was a small piece of cake which was $4.95/person. The waitress said she would cut the pieces smaller so people could have seconds. No one had seconds, we were charged for 30 people, even though there were 19, and they only offered us 4 pieces to take home. And to make matters worse alcohol was heavily pushed by the waitstaff throughout. When asking for drinks they would say ""cocktails? what would you like?"". Even suggesting cocktails to guests. If you plan on holding an event here you better have everything spelled out and in writing before the event.
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