The Chart House has a lovely facility, but that’s about where my compliments stop. A few weeks ago we had a company dinner for 30 people planned for a Tuesday evening.…
The facility: deader than dead. We were about the only people there. The restrooms near where we were seated were out of paper towels before we even showed up and the in-stall garbages in the ladies room obviously had not been emptied for a long time.
The food: We narrowed down the menu to a choice of three entrees and gave the facility our final order count for each prior to the event. For those that had the walleye, most were cold and some weren’t even cooked all the way. One person sent their walleye back saying it wasn’t fully cooked and immediately received a new cold one in its place. For those that had the prime rib, it was overdone. And unfortunately I received mine a good five minutes after everyone else in the party had been served only to have it delivered well done. After dinner, they brought around dessert trays, each plate showing two slices of each type of dessert. I asked the waitress whether they came with two slices or one, and she couldn’t answer that question for me. So I told her that if it were two slices, I would share it with the person next to me, and if it’s one slice, we’ll each have one. She brought us each a plate with two slices. A few other people mentioned to me how they waited a long time to get their drinks so they got up and went to the bar to get them themselves, while other servers and the owner sat at the bar and watched them take their drinks off the counter.
The staff: After dinner, I asked to speak with the owner. I approached the issues in a nice manner, but he immediately got defensive. When I brought up how my meal came out long after everyone else’s and he tried to give me a story as to how one of our guests switched their meal and that’s why they ran out. (Unfortunately for him I was standing right there when that person did ask to switch, but was told no because they only had exact amounts of each.) It was obvious that the prime rib was not being cut off of a roast but was being reheated from some earlier time. After some negotiation, the owner took some money off the bill, but he certainly did not leave me with a good taste in my mouth. The servers were nice, but seemed helpless to answer our questions or fix any of the complaints as they arose. As I was leaving the restaurant, the cook actually apologized to me in the parking lot for the poor meal.
Overall: I would never recommend this place to anyone. In fact, you’d have to pay me to go there again. The place certainly isn’t cheap, but unfortunately I could classify it as one of my worst experiences ever. With the attitude of the owner, I don’t expect the place to be open much longer.
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