Let me preface this by saying that we had visited this place another couple of times in the past and the service and food was good. However, last night's visit will sadly be our last.
So:
We walked in about 5 minutes ahead of our reservation and they told us they were waiting for a table to clear. My wife asked them if we could sit at the bar and they said that'd be ok. They also told me they'd notify us by text (even though we were just a few feet away) when our table was ready.
The person at the bar was, in one word, *excellent*. He was very knowledable with the drinks and was super polite/nice too. So this felt like a great start to our night!
At some point we started feeling really hungry, when we realized we had been waiting for about half an hour without anyone giving us a heads-up. At the same time, we were noticing other people (incl. couples) getting tables. I walked to the hostess asking what's the status of our table and she said that a table had *just* been made available. The table they walked us to was a tiny one and to the side of the reustarant - when pretty much every single other couple was getting a larger one. I mentioned this to them, as well as the fact we had been waiting half an hour for our table. The lady brought a manager who told us they'd get a different table for us. We'd just have to wait a couple of minuts and they'd compensate our drinks for our wait.
So we went back to the bar, waiting again. During our 20 minutes (!) there we kept noticing even more couples coming in and getting seats almost immediately. So I decided to walk to the manager and ask what's up with our table. He said they had *just* found one by the window.
Between the time we walked into the restaurant and the time we actually sat down to a reasonably-sized table, 50 minutes had gone by.
Our server was nice but seemed pretty busy. She took the order for our appetizer (oyster sampler - they were great) but then she didn't come back to get the mains order until we had eaten our appetizer and another 10-15 minutes had gone by. So there was a considerable wait between the end of the appetizer and the main course.
At the end of mains and as the server came around to ask if we wanted dessert, we noticed a *giant* cockroach walking up the window. I pointed this to the server and a manager came by apologizing, saying they would remove the drinks or something off the bill. We skipped dessert, the bill came and, of course, nothing was removed/discounted from it. I don't really care for money and, even if either of the two managers I had spoken to last night had actually removed anything from the bill, my opinion (and this review) would almost certainly remain the same. But them not really doing anything did demonstrate an additional lack of respect to their patrons.
I don't know if the people who work there are overworked or perhaps not trained enough (a common issue with many restaurants these days). But what I *do* know is that my wife and I typically visit restaurants about 2-3 times a week and have been doing so for god-knows how many years now. So we know a thing or two about the expected level of service - especially at establishments commanding the prices Water Grill does. If this was a local MacDonalds, I'd obviously not be complaining about the above.
So, to summarize: we waited a long time for a table, they attempted to give us a crappy one, we waited some more, we waited for the server, we saw a cockroach a few feet from us and, despite manager assurances, did not getting compensated for any of the above.
Because of this, we won't be coming back and we'll make sure to tell everyone we know about our experience.
