Horrific Service at Blue Seats

I’ve never left below a 15% tip in my life.  Until last Thursday.

It was the NCAA tournament, and a few friends and I decided to grab dinner out on the Lower East Side.  WIth the Syracuse game on, we decided to head to a bar with tvs and went to the Blue Seats on Ludlow between RIvington and Stanton.  The Blue Seats has tvs all over the bar and if you are lucky enough to snag a booth (we weren’t) there are tvs even in the booth.

We made a reservation for 7.  And by 7:45, we still had yet to see a waitress and were sipping on beers we purchased at the bar.  When she finally came over, one of us commented that we sympathized with her since she was so busy and she probably needed a few others on staff to help her.  Our server’s reponse:  “I don’t want anyone working here because I don’t want to share my tips.”  Seriously. This came out of her mouth.  The next comment was, “If you need me, come grab me.”  I’m sorry, but this is your job, shouldn’t you naturally be checking up on us?  I’d also like to add, she never handed us menus, and we actually used the menus that were hanging in the window.

We placed an order for a wings sampler.  Three varieties of wings were served – sesame glazed, rosemary and herb and buffalo.  Sesame glazed was the best, and buffalo wasn’t too bad.  The rosemary and herb was a little dry and was just a regular fried wing – no real flavor at all.

Now, we placed an order for food once our wings were received.  Our friend Eddie’s food came out at 8:45.  We told him to dig in, since our burgers were no where in sight.  Good thing we did.  He was finished with his meal, and we still hadn’t been served.  We grabbed our waitress like she instructed us to do, and complained our food had yet to arrive.  It miraculously came out a few minutes later.  I was a little surprised by my meal – mainly because I never received it.  I had ordered a burger, and the menu said you could order it as a full burger or a slider.  Under burger, the menu said you could order the meat as a 1/4 pound or 1/2 pound.  I went with a 1/4 pound.  As my friend Amy was complaining to the waitress that there were four sliders on her plate when she ordered three, and I chimed in that I never received my burger, I quickly learned that a 1/4 pound burger is actually a slider.  I’m left writing this still wondering two questions:  when I placed the order, why wasn’t I told that this was a slider?  A friendly heads up would have been nice.  Secondly, after learning that the slider on my friend’s plate was mine, why didn’t the waitress bring me a plate?  I ended up eating this off a napkin.  From what I can recall, the three bites of my slider were pretty good and I enjoyed it. Amy, who ordered the slider sampler, raved about the bbq pulled pork and said it was phenomenal. 

My main focus was the mac and cheese.  We ordered it for the table and I may have eaten more than my share.  It was creamy and the pasta was mini shells, which was the perfect touch.  It was absolutely delicious and we all enjoyed it.  Just a warning though – it comes out really hot – you can’t eat it for a few minutes. 

We hunted our waitress down for the check, and again, getting her to come pick up our credit cards was a long process.  However, as she handed our cards back and we were about to fill in the amount for the tip, she apologized for the first time all night for the long wait with the cards. 

Overall, food at Blue Seats is good, but the service was atrocious.  It should not take me 2.5 hours from when we are seated, to be served an appetizer and a burger.  This is not a four course fancy meal.  This is a burger we’re talking about and I should be on my way out in 90 minutes tops.