Okie dokie, my wife and I had a gift card for this place and we decided we needed something other than turkey and stuffing for the holiday weekend, so we went Wednesday night. The food was solid, I had a Cesar salad which was very good, my wife a beet salad which was equally as good. I went for the pork chop murphy which was solid and my wife got the salmon which she enjoyed. The real reason for the write up was the entertainment and the service.
First the service, we arrived around 7pm on the Wednesday night before thanksgiving, I wasn’t sure what to expect but the place had maybe 7-8 tables of which 3 were 5 tops +. There was 1 server, 1 food runner and 1 hostess who besides seating people was useless. I enjoyed watching the waitress (who at one point reached 9 occupied tables) provide quite adequate service to all her tables. Obviously, the service was a bit “rushed” with her visits, but nothing went lacking I was truly surprised. She hustled and got the job done.
Food runner was excellent helping and assisting as he should, the hostess though really p*ssed me off. I lterally wanted to grab a water pitcher and walk around filling glasses, check on tables do SOMETHING!?!?!?!?! I don’t blame the person, but whoever manages the place should either be there -OR- cross train ALL STAFF to pitch in when needed.
I’m not blaming the hostess, she did nothing wrong, but she did nothing to help a server who was obviously in the weeds, but still holding her own.
Next was the entertainment. I have no idea who they were, nor why they were there, but they had a duo playing, a male piano player and vocalist and a female vocalist. They were EXCELLENT. They really seemed out of place playing at a BYO Italian restaurant in front of 40± people on a Wednesday night.
(I’m going to attempt uploading a brief video I took) They did a wide variety of songs; however, they did a Phantom of the Opera set, which was AMAZING. Having seen the play a few times I’m a big fan, I could have sworn I heard the male say the female singer had played Chrstine, not sure if that was in a high school version or Broadway, but for a Wednesday night in Middletown NJ, you got a hell of a rendition of the songs from Phantom.
I would go back just for the entertainment value if they were going to continue to have entertainment of this quality.
(( file size too large to upload video, sorry ))
