I was very much looking forward to Chez Spencer since I had such an amazing experience last time. My love and I met old friends and they love it there too. We arrived and we were told we were 15 minutes early in a funky toned voice. That's cool, we knew that and we were going to wait. They couldn't hang on to our bottles of wine we brought. I finally had to ask the bartender to chill one for us while we sat at the bar and waited for the rest of our party. He was not exactly thrilled to be there. As I think back the only one who seemed like he wanted to be there was the one male server assistant who did not know what he was doing because he was probably new :( It was really odd, when we were ready to sit I went over to the hostess and let her know then we all just kind of stood there looking at each other (her included), she kept repeating that we could just hang out at the bar if we wanted, after I repeated that we would like to sit at our table, LOL.
So we sat and well, I could just complain about the service until my hands turn blue from typing so I won't. Service seems to be a huge problem over the last few days all around. The food was just fine. Foie Gras was to die for. Scallops were alright. The duck was over cooked and bland. It is Liberty Duck which tends to be more difficult to mess up but apparently it happens. We had to ask for our wine to be opened (seems to be a theme for this weekend). Quite possibly service staff dislike when consumers bring in their own wine because they think that cuts in to their tip since there would not be as much alcohol sold. This was not the case with us since three out of five were drinking wine while the other two were ordering drinks.
There was not a whole lot of space on our table of five people so when I told the server my boyfriend and I were sharing but she did not need to bring another plate she was rude. Half way through our meal, she was at the bar (having a staff "end of shit" drink?) and then was gone. So...no server now?
For a special restaurant that is very nice in the style of the place, the menu and the perception; this night was bunk. With the economic troubles everyone is going through, restaurants should nurture the patrons they have because one would think it is word of mouth and now social media that will spread news and tell people where the great places are. People are becoming more picky when they spend their money now. At the same time after going out more and more I am beginning to wonder if the staff in restaurants are taking their jobs less seriously because there is always something else if it does not work where they currently are....
