Heartline Cafe — Local services in Four Corners States

Update on my horrific dining experience here:

GOT FOOD POISONING WITHIN SEVERAL HOURS OF EATING AT HEART LINE CAFE!!!! (did not eat anything in between; you do the math!) Happened March 2014.

Heartline Cafe staff/attorneys have been quite rude and also have attempted to seemingly shut me up through an 'intimidation' letter/calls demanding in no uncertain terms that I remove all my posts about them.

Hmmmm...something to hide, perchance, Heartline Cafe, in your seeming desperation to try to silence my posts?

Most restaurants would have offered a genuine, heartfelt apology after a guest becomes so very ill after dining. Not Heartline Café. Not once!

In addition to them mailing a letter, I spoke with 2 of their reps/owners today, August 27, 2014, both demanding I take those posts down yet again so they'd not have to take it up with "the courts." I also have a voice message to prove it.

I have a civil RIGHT to post what happened to me at the poorly run restaurant called Heartline Cafe. My experiences show me it is indeed poorly operated on several levels. Now here again is my review and I will post it everywhere humanly possible because IT IS MY RIGHT to inform the public of my experience . That is what these reviews, after all, are for, dear beloved owners and attorneys of Heart Line Cafe. You will NOT succeed in shutting me up and I think the public may find it interesting that you are seemingly trying to.

I got food poisoning within a few hours of eating at this restaurant back in March. I know it well because it was my birthday (the next day) that I was terribly ill! No-one wants food poisoning!

So the night I ate at the Heartline Café and the entire next day, I was hugging the toilet like mad. It was the worst birthday a person can have! Alone, puking, and knowing that if I could only have made it away from the toilet to drive the hour to Cottonwood from my residence in Flagstaff (Cottonwood is the nearest health dept for Sedona), I could have surely proven it. But alas, I was told it had to be done that day (when I called Robert at the health dept) and there was NO WAY I could leave the house. Anyone who has ever had food poisoning will understand exactly why!

(That by the way, is one slanderous comment the attorneys accused me of in the letter: "not following through" by me to provide a stool sample...when I was decapacitated to do so! Appalling, I know! The same letter, by the way, which they actually sent to a friend of mine, if you can believe that! So yes, instead of a genuine apology to me, nope, the owners and their attorneys sent a defamation letter of my supposed actions/character (twisting the truth unrecognizably) to my friend with his name on it and HE opened their letter and he called me and read it to me. Yeah, WOW! Truly a low ball tactic and there WILL be legal ramifications for having done so!) Yes, that is written to YOU, Heart Line cafe owners/ lawyers. No excuse for what you've done. So LOW and thoroughly reprehensible! Great way to take ETHICAL responsibility for their actions.

Here was my original review written back in March 2014 ( it may be a little redundant since I provided background info on events that have occurred since).

I've been to Heartline Cafe three times in my life. The first, years ago, was wonderful! The second time most recently was awful but I returned a third because they provided a gift certificate as a compensation for my lousy, unprofessional experience there and asked me to come back. I was told to enjoy some dinner/wine with the certificate by the manager and then after I ordered wine, the waiter refused to cover it with the certificate the manager had provided.

The food was not AT ALL on par with the excellent cuisine one would hope. But the worst part is I got food poisoning and was sick all that night and my entire birthday the next day! I reported them to the health department (spoke with Robert). DON'T GO if you value your time...

Sedona had heavy snowfall during the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. We were staying in a lodge up on a mountain, had to leave our car at the bottom, and hike back up. The road was later cleared and gritted, but turned to slush. With temperatures due to plummet to 24f overnight it seemed likely to ice over after sunset.

We had an 8:30pm reservation at Heartline and had to provide a credit card at time of booking in case we cancelled within 24 hours, due to “problems they had on Christmas Eve.” The feeling among guests at the lodge was that the road would be too icy to drive over night before it was cleared again in the morning. And we couldn’t hike it after dark. So, we sadly decided to cancel the reservation. I phoned every hour until I got an answer. When I did, I explained the situation, but ended up in a debate with the restaurant on the safety of the road. Them: “in 28 years I’ve never known that road to be too dangerous to drive on; we’ve never had a cancelation due to weather; that’s one of the safest roads in town.” Meanwhile I was literally stood on the road while making the call, after having just driven up it, seeing it get more compacted and icy. The call ended with them “having” to charge us a $25 cancelation fee.

Maybe they were right about the road; I get that losing a reservation to weather on New Year’s Eve is frustrating—although I’m sure they’ll fill it in the next 3.5 hours. But, they were jerks, debating us risking our safety for $25. We’re already sad that we’re stuck in our room on New Year’s Eve. They had zero compassion.

It sucks for everyone, but I have to get something for my $25, so...

Phyllis and Chuck own and operate one of the very best restaurants to have ever graced Sedona. The Heartline has always been the only dining venue that would stand up to any critic in my family of chefs and foodies. Whenever I had a visitor in town and an fine dining meal was on the menu, The Heartline is always the first choice.

They started several decades ago humbly developing a local following. In those old days, if a restaurant didn't win over the locals, it wouldn't make it through the slow winter tourism times. The Heartline had many happy locals on its side within a short period of time and successfuly navigated slow times, real estate bust times, and the ever skyrocketing numbers of fine diners that have helped put Sedona on the epicurean map. The inside atmosphere is delightful and the outside enclosed patio is to live for. Even on a cold evening I will usually choose to sit near the gas heaters outside in order to savor the air and the scented breeze that slide through the many plants and flowers adorning the cortyard seating. It's intimate in spades and only the food exceeds this venue's sheer beauty. Chuck's cuisine is remarkable and will cast a jpoyful spell on anyone fortunate enough to dine here. You...