Simply said, do not go to this establishment. This is a long read but based off the owner's…read moreunprofessional, inaccurate and quite frankly, rude reply to a member of our group who gave a, short and sweet, negative review (on Yelp), it feels necessary to catalog the details.
We had a Friday evening reservation and a party of 9. We were seated outside on the patio along the back/side fence area. Our server, Sean (who was lovely and doing his best despite his leadership), greeted us, gave menus and went to get us a round of waters. While waiting and looking through the drink menu, two of us immediately smelled hot garbage. It came in waves so we dealt with it for awhile. The table next to us, who were in the process of cashing out, asked if we could smell it and when we replied yes, were told they had been informed it was a dead animal. We tried to ignore the smell since no one else in our group seemed bothered...
Meanwhile, one of our group went in to ask if the bartender could make Espresso Martini's and was told yes. We proceed order 7 martinis, 1 Coke and 3 orders of Fries. All of that came out rather quickly. The Espresso Martinis however, were terrible. They tasted like watered-down coffee mixed with vodka. Not everyone can make an Espresso Martini, let alone a good one, which is why we went to ask (reminder: it's ok to say no if you can't do it). Only 3 out of 7 of even drank them and when we commented about how they tasted, our server apologized and asked if we wanted something else, but in the end we were still charged for all of them.
Next, we each order our food, while we wait for the food, the smell is progressively getting worse and now everyone at the table, as well as the table seated adjacent to us, are plugging our noses. They ask to be moved and are, we ask next and are told they have to check. (It's worth noting here that we were NEVER offered to move, we asked to be moved - twice.) The other table (a 6 top) that was seated after us, suddenly gets their food. We ask the chef where our food is, as at this point we're well over an hour into this experience, and he says we have a larger group (yes, 9 is more than 6, but not by a landslide) so it's coming. Ok, odd, but sure thing.
Our food starts coming and I personally ask whether we can be moved because the smell is overwhelming at this point. Sean, again, says he has to check. At that point everyone had enough and we told them to bring the remainder of food, the bill and to-go boxes. We settled our bill and left immediately.
While I can acknowledge it's really no "fault" of anyone's that an overflowing dumpster just behind the patio wall emits a terrible smell, when several tables have complained and are visibly bothered by it, perhaps lying about it being a dead animal and/or continuing to seat people there is not the best idea.
With all that said, our food was fine. Nothing wonderful, nothing terrible. It was cold by the time we ate it because we had to take it home to eat it. Even if the food was the best in the world, the experience would have tarnished it regardless.
One of the unfortunate parts about all of this was that I was very excited to try this place after hearing great things over the years. Immediately prior to going, I heard from some locals that it had changed ownership/management and had gone downhill since then. With no prior experience, I would say I have to agree. Furthermore, I had started writing a short and sweet not-so-great review the night it happened but another member of our group posted our experience so I canceled it. Now that the owner had replied to that precious post in such a distasteful manner I've decided to write it again and also post it across all my review platforms since he's already accused us of doing so.
I have posted our receipt for clarity on what we ordered and look forward to his comment here since he seems get sassy with everyone who leaves any sort of negative review. A word of advice, sir: perhaps your energy would be better spent offering even a half-assed apology about a bad experience and making any attempt at fixing the issues that are brought to your attention to make your customers actually want to come back instead of watching security cameras, checking time stamps and sitting behind an internet review board making snide comments to those customers making us never even consider returning.