Disclaimer: I've been a bar/restaurant manager for many years, & I don't typically say boo because I know how hard we restaurant people work. But I can't keep quiet on this one -
I went to Brother Mike's this week to meet some old restaurant coworkers of mine to catch up & haven't been there since it switched hands from Malone's, so I was excited about the new experience. It was Monday night, there were probably a total of 4 parties of 3-4 & 80% of the bar seats full. By no means was it crowded, but it's Monday, so that's to be expected. I arrived later than my friends so they ordered a drink while they waited for me. I sat for 15 whole minutes before our waitress came over to greet me & ask if I wanted anything to drink. I asked for two glasses of water - weird, i know - but I drink a lot of water & at the snail speed it took her to come around the first time I figured I'd just cover my bases from the jump.
She came back with my waters probably 6 minutes later, dropped them off and turned around and walked away again. Our menus were stacked - the universal sign of "we're ready to order" & another 10 minutes passed.
Finally our orders get taken, two friends have empty beer glasses in front of them, zero acknowledgment of that from her. We got a couple orders of wings to start and everyone got a meal. The wings came out, she dropped them off, said nothing and turned around and walked away. Still empty glasses in front of now all of us. I finally had to flag down another waitress to ask for appetizer plates, extra napkins (because wings) and refills on all of our drinks (my two waters were empty by now & I stole my friend's across the table). She took care of all of it immediately without any hesitation or issue. Still no refills on drinks.
Our entrees come out, we've stacked our plates from the wings (because we're restaurant people and that's what we do), she grabbed the dirty plates & was about to walk away and I finally spoke up and said hang on! I asked for as many things I could think of us needing before she walked away again. We didn't see her again until our plates were clear.
After din she asked if anyone wanted dessert - my friend said he'd like to hear what they had, she nodded awkwardly and walked away. Then came back with the bill, which is presented on a tablet - fine - but it's incredibly uncomfortable when your server is now standing at your table awkwardly watching & waiting for you to give her a good tip. That was the icing on my cake (since we didn't get dessert). Would it have been more rude of me to ask her to walk away again orrrrr...?
I'm sure that Brother Mike's is a fun place -- the food was decent, the atmosphere & decor are really cute -- I would literally just rather stick a fork in my eye than deal with another server like that again. I'm giving 3 stars solely not to completely ruin their yelp rating, but I can't promise I'll be back anytime soon - certainly not on a Monday. read more