Our inaugural Supper Club was held at Vinino Bistro in the Power & Light District on November 29th. I’ll start at the end of the evening. Our entire meal and drinks were comp’ed and we each received a coupon for two free meals. This should indicate the disaster that ensued through the course of the evening. One caveat is that we visited this restaurant in its first couple weeks in business and recent reviews of Vinino’s are much more favorable than our experience so I hope it has improved.
As the first host, I chose the restaurant and did not reveal where we were going until everyone arrived at my house. We are six women, all with different personalities and expectations. Some of us are more vocal than others when met with sub par service and some of us would rather crawl under the table than complain about service—that would be me. However, we were unanimous in our displeasure. Here is a rundown of how the evening played out for us.
The restaurant itself is charming and had definite city atmosphere. It is located at 13th and Grand. We had reservations and were immediately shown to our table when we arrived. It was a Thursday night and with no events at the Sprint Center there were several empty tables. Our waiter was a tad chit chatty for my taste and seemed to want to entertain us with his witty banter more than listen to our drink orders. Fifteen minutes after we ordered, we still didn’t have any drinks. He finally seemed to remember we were there and came back with four of the drinks but apparently forgot two of us. Eventually, we reordered the missing drinks when we selected our appetizers. It was a half an hour before the waiter brought our appetizers. He took one drink order and left the table before any one else could order another drink despite our empty glasses. When he returned he brought with him the wrong drinks, the wrong appetizers and a bad case of adult ADD. Several times our table was approached by a random server who kept trying to give us other people’s orders. She apparently had no idea how the tables were arranged.
Finally, we straightened out the drinks, the appetizers and ordered entrees. In the meantime, about every 5 minutes or so, someone would appear and fill our water glasses. We definitely were well hydrated throughout the evening. Again, there were about 10 tables of customers. That’s it. About an hour after we ordered our entrees, there we sat with our full water glasses. During a restroom run, a couple of our party overheard a gal sobbing into her phone about how horrible her evening was going because her date was complaining so much about the disastrous service and food.
Eventually our entrées did arrive –for three of us. Ten minutes later two other entrées arrived after we asked the waiter to see if he could go find our food. All of the dishes were cold and one of the orders was wrong. One meal was completely missing and the waiter didn’t even notice he hadn’t served one of us. Holly had ordered pizza, presumably one of the simplest items on the menu and it just never came. We called over the waiter and explained that first we weren’t all served and that the food was cold. He was annoyed and took back the food despite a couple of us saying we’d rather just skip dinner at this point. We were all reserved our food but still no pizza for Holly. The waiter dropped silverware, spilled water and brought a wine glass with distinct lipstick marks still smeared on the rim. Holly found the manager and after explaining everything to her, she took care of our entire bill and gave each of us a card entitling us to two free meals in the future. To the manager’s credit, she knelt down next to each six of us and asked us what they could do better and she appeared to listen.
Highlights: The hummus appetizer with olive oil, an olive tapenade and an assortment of bread was very delicious. And Holly was finally served her pizza, it wasn’t the actual one that she ordered but it was great. --JMF
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