The food at Charcoal Room is undeniable, but it is completely overshadowed by the most…read moredisrespectful, bizarre, and condescending service I have ever experienced. My table--a group consisting of highly educated professionals, industry servers from another casino, and military personnel--gathered to celebrate a birthday. As a well-traveled individual who has dined at steakhouses and fine-dining establishments all over the world, I have never seen a waiter intentionally try to provoke and insult every single customer at a table quite like Craig did.
From the moment we sat down, Craig was a frantic mess. Despite only serving a few tables, he rushed around aimlessly, creating a stressful atmosphere. He took our initial drink orders, which turned out to be the only time all night he offered us drinks or was available to take a beverage order.
When it came time to order food, Craig immediately began talking down to us. He repeatedly reminded each couple that the sides were large enough to share, delivering the information with a tone that implied we had never stepped foot in a steakhouse before. When I attempted to order two sides to share specifically with my husband, Craig abruptly cut me off to remind me that those sides had already been ordered at the other end of the table. I had to explicitly explain to him that these were for us, and that we were not sharing two side dishes with the entire table.
While the food itself was delicious, the execution was completely botched. The birthday girl received the wrong steak--either Craig wrote the order down backward, or the kitchen placed a very poor excuse for an "Oscar style" topping on the wrong cut. Because the steak was cooked completely incorrectly, she politely apologized and sent it back. Craig's immediate reaction was to defensively blame her, claiming she had cut into the wrong part of the steak and that was why it looked well-done rather than medium.
It took 30 minutes for the correct steak to return, at which point the rest of the table was already finished eating. When Craig dropped the plate off, he stood over the birthday girl and condescendingly instructed her to "make sure to cut into the middle because that's how you're supposed to do it," lecturing a grown adult and an industry server as if she were a child. It was incredibly rude and awkward. During this hour-long ordeal, I tried multiple times to flag Craig down just to order a glass of wine, but he was completely checked out, wandering frantically around the room without actually helping anyone.
The real grand finale, however, was the check situation. Craig dropped one single bill at the end of the night. While we admit we could have requested separate checks at the beginning, he also completely ignored a guest at the end of the table who did ask to be on her own check before ordering. When we asked to split the bill, Craig became visibly aggressive. He snapped at us, saying that splitting the bill between two couples and three singles was "too much work," and muttered, "So basically everyone wants their own check."
We tried to calm the situation by explaining that the system tracks by seat numbers, and we clearly mapped out which seats belonged together. Instead of doing his job, Craig threw a legitimate tantrum. He claimed it was "nearly impossible" to figure out who ate what because of the sides, and then aggressively marched around the table, forcing everyone to retell him their entire order because he couldn't read his own messy handwriting on his notepad. He then proceeded to lecture us again, stating, "When you go out to dinner, you're supposed to tell the server before you order that you're going to be on separate checks." We told him we understood, but he remained flustered and disappeared to the POS terminal for 10 minutes. When he finally brought the checks back, we handed him our cards immediately, only for him to storm off and disappear for another 15 minutes.
To make matters worse, the manager on duty was absolutely pointless. He stood by, witnessed this entire aggressive interaction, and never once came over to address the table or smooth things over. The management at Charcoal Room should be deeply ashamed of their lack of accountability. Craig has no business working in customer service, let alone a steakhouse. Save your money and go somewhere where the staff treats you with basic human decency.