The Upstate Life

Monday, February 04, 2008

TUL's Take: Bethesda Restaurant Week @ Visions

Now this should be an interesting story. Where should I even begin? The poor service? The lack of waitstaff? The fact it took us over an hour to receive our first course? Visions, which is next door to David Craig, should take notice of its neighbor and learn how to actually run a restaurant. We were seated at around 8pm and one of the waitresses dropped off menus to the table. She never returned. After getting the attention of the other waitress by relentlessly starting at her, she asked if we had already been helped to which our unanimous response was "no." I should also note that two tables of two were seated after us but were attended to almost immediately. IIRC, our server took our order about 30 minutes after we were seated.

Our first course arrived at a little after 9pm. The food, however, was very good. I ordered the steamed black mussels with bacon, black beans and leeks and it was excellent. The broth alone was delicious let alone the generous amount of mussels that accompanied the dish. Little did we know how long it would take for our entrée to arrive. We didn't even get bread throughout the entire time I might add. I actually had to ask for some for the table. It was now 9:30pm and we couldn't help but notice four plates sitting by the counter that had yet to be served. Since we were a table of four, we could only assume that those were our meals. 15 more minutes had passed until one of our friends decided to go up to the waitress and point out the fact that those were our entrees that had been sitting up there. She insisted that they just came up and that the plates were hot. I can't recall a time a waitress actually lied to me before, but hey, that's what happened. Everyone's dinner, despite looking incredibly good, was warm at best. Jess was the worst off since her pasta with crab tomato sauce was downright cold. So here we are, at 9:45pm, just being served our lukewarm main course which had been sitting by the kitchen for at least 15 minutes.

After some deliberation, Travis suggested that we just pay for the appetizers and leave. I should also note that the two couples that were sat after us were already eating their dessert. Honestly, I was ready to suck it up and just eat my filet mignon satay since I was downright starving, but majority ruled and decided to find a restaurant that actually had some customer service. Not one staff member came by and followed up with us throughout the entire time we were seated let alone apologized for the absurd amount of time it took for our food to arrive. It also didn't make a lot of sense that despite arriving before other parties, our food still took incredibly longer to arrive. The waitress wasn't too thrilled about the situation and wasn't trying to be friendly or apologetic about it at all which frustrated our party even further. You would think Visions would try to please their customers but, alas, it was a lost cause. We paid the cost of the appetizers (along with tax) and left.

Well, that was definitely a first for me. I can't recall such a negative experience during Restaurant Week. The food that I did have at Visions was very good and I'm sure their chefs are excellent, but this place seriously needs to work on the other parts of running an establishment besides what's offered on the menu. I'm sure if it was less busy (and if it wasn't Restaurant Week) it could've easily been a better experience, but our dinner at Visions left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't know if I'll be able to give it a second chance. We eventually ended up at nearby Rock Bottom where, gasp, a waitress immediately came by and took our order. The food arrived in a timely fashion and the server provided excellent service and was very attentive. Sure my BBQ beef sandwich wasn't a filet mignon satay, but at least Rock Bottom ran their operation like clockwork. So essentially, at least for that fateful Friday night: Rock Bottom > Visions. On the other hand, the band that was performing at Rock Bottom < Visions.

UPDATE - Visions responds to our experience

Posted by Brett at 2:33 PM |