When I first moved to Jacksonville, I did the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives tour with my friends who'd lived here forever. At the time, this was one of my favorite places to eat (I even have an old review for the place, but it was for the wrong location since I didn't know there were more than one). Over the course of the last year, though, it's slowly started to drop off both in service and in food quality.
For example, about a month after we heard they extended their hours, my wife and I went to try their dinnerish food. I can't remember everything we ordered (since it's been a while), but I can tell you that the meatloaf sliders came out cold on the inside, and the bread was noticeably stale. I could swear I also had some pasta/chicken dish with lemon and capers, but I can't see it on the menu now so it must have been a special of some sort. Anyways, it was exceptionally salty.
The service was also slow (despite it being at roughly 25% occupancy); we waited maybe 10 minutes for drinks, and what seemed like an eternity for our check. I chalked all this up to the staff getting their footing on a new dinner menu and the adjusting to flow of that time of the day.
Then I had another weirdly bad service issue. This one was less the business' fault at first, but I still didn't like the way they handled it. Basically, for those that haven't gone here, the outside is handled as a secondary option--meaning, the host will ask you if you're okay with seating outside. I always say yes, as the location is almost entirely shaded when hot, and they have heat lamps for when it's cold.
Anyway, my wife and I are standing outside waiting for a table to open up when we see two tables free up at once. I watch as the staff comes over and cleans one table immediately, expecting (as they have every other time in the past) the host to call our name for the table at any moment. Before that happens, I see two different families sit at the tables--both the freshly cleaned one, and the still dirty one. I go in to tell the staff that both sets of seats were taken by people who just walked up off the street, and at that point I was notified that the outside seats are "first come first serve." I probably don't need to explain to any of my readers how that's a terrible method for seating people--especially when the host asks if you're okay with outside seating...
A more recent example was when I had family in town (maybe a month and a half ago), and we waited for nearly an hour and a half as we were told "just 15 more minutes" when we'd ask how long the wait would be. For a while we saw smaller parties come in after us and take up 2+ tables that would have been perfect to merge for a party of our size (7 people). Right around the time we noticed a pretty large group leaving who came in AFTER us, we saw a 2 tables we'd been eyeing outside get split up for two separate families that showed up an hour AFTER us. Until that point I was patient, as I knew having anything more that 4 people made it hard to seat quickly at Metro, but that was just ridiculous so I had to go ask what the deal was. When I asked why the staff made such a decision, the girl gave me the "I'm only smiling because you're the customer" look and said that I didn't ask for outside seating (which I definitely DID, because it felt amazing outside and I knew it would also decrease our wait time), but that she could have a table ready for us "in 15 minutes." Dejected, I turned to my family and explained that there was a misunderstanding, and that I was sorry but this has never happened before.
Angry, my wife decided she was done waiting and started to walk off, which prompted the host to ask us why we were leaving (I honestly don't know how she asked that with a straight face). Before anyone in my party had a chance to get ornery with her, I walked up and explained that while we'd expected a longer than usual wait, we were disappointed with how many opportunities were lost to get us seating. She then asked me if there was anything she could do to change our minds. I simply told her we'd like to sit down and eat RIGHT NOW--knowing full well there were two adjacent tables inside because I saw them when I walked in to ask why they gave the outside tables to two families.
Her response? "It'll be 15 minutes."
I don't know what we did to that girl, but it was clear she enjoyed handing out whatever punishment she thought we deserved. I've given this place a lot of passes on their food and (especially) their service, but at this point I'm starting to think it's part of their work culture. I just don't think they're the awesome place they used to be. read more