Date night at Vita on Friday was a shit deal. It's only fair that I share it with you because I've given them two other shining reviews. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh in considering never returning after one bad dinner, but I'll let you be the judge.
1. We were one of three couples seated in the entire restaurant and we were seated directly between the other two couples. Nevermind that there were 20 other empty tables, I mean god forbid a couple have an intimate meal. Normally I wouldn't complain about this, but it was just the first thing of several to make my experience there bad enough to blog about.
2. I ordered the pancetta, spinach and goat cheese salad as my entree. Having had this before, I was sure that it was an entree portion and that it was a well balanced meal. What I got was literally two handfuls of spinach, three nickel-sized portions of goat cheese, about half a jar of roasted red peppers and about 1/8 cup of fried prosciutto or bacon. This salad was not an entree portion, didn't have the walnuts it was supposed to, nor the pancetta and it was covered in slimy roasted red peppers (which aren't supposed to be on it). I ate it nonetheless and didn't even comment on it to the waiter.
3. About 10 seconds after bringing our salads out the fire alarm started to sound. We were assured that we didn't need to evacuate and that it's just really sensitive. While the alarm went off, we were treated to a skipping Radiohead cd. After about 15 minutes of flashing lights and sirens, the fire department showed up and managed to shut the audible alarm off. The strobing lights continued, along with the skipping radiohead cd, even as we left 10 minutes later. The waiter and bar staff apologized a few times while waiting and I jokingly said, "Don't worry, you can just give us free dessert."
Perhaps my expectations are too high, but if I ran a restaurant with only three tables occupied on a Friday night at 6:00 and they were all couples that had to sit through 25 minutes of a fire alarm going off, I'd comp SOMETHING. Not a damn thing from Vita. Not a free beer, dessert, voucher, NOTHING. Nevermind that they own the restaurant next door too and could have offered to move us over there for a drink or something while we waited for the racket to end. NOTHING. Bad, bad, bad, bad Vita.
We left hungry and irritated (well mostly it was just me that was still hungry since 1 1/2 cups of raw spinach doesn't get it for dinner for a pregnant woman). We headed over to Cinelli's and got an appetizer sampler and some yummy chocolate cake. While the service was a little underwhelming, the fried platter was decent and the atmosphere was much better.
5 comments:
No joke! They should have done nice in order to appologize for all that disturbing time. :) Vanessa
I probably wouldn't have been able to kept my mouth shut and would have asked to be seated elsewhere. They should honor that. If I couldn't sit where I wanted when the place was practically empty I'd turn around and walk out. Then, the food, well I would have said something. The don't know unless you do ;)
Thirdly, you deserved at least an explanation about what was going on with an apology! That part would make me not go back ever again. They obviously had a problem and they could have told their customers.
Yeah normally it wouldn't have bothered me to be seated where we were, but in retrospect it just made me question, WHAT THE HELL?
I should have said something about the food, but because I was with my husband (who doesn't think it necessary to comment on food if it's edible) and because of the blaring noise and flashing lights, I just decided to leave it alone. I didn't want to irritate him and I didn't want to over-react.
In Vita's defense, one of the times I was there and the service was really bad, they did end up comping our salads. I think this night was just extra bad and left a sour taste in my mouth for Vita.
that is nuts. they totally should have refunded your money, at the very least.
Hello my name is Chef Yianni from Vita. My goal is to give every costumer the best dinning experience possible and I was very concern with what happen in your last visit at Vita. I will like to invite you back for dinner for 2 anytime you like .Please give me call so I can make arrangements.
Thank you very much Chef Yianni
Vita (919)-286-9755
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