Chez Lucien — Restaurant in Ottawa

Perfect place to go if you like waiting 3 hours for your food. At first glance this looked like a great place to grab lunch. The reviews were also enticing. Were we ever deceived. We were told the wait would be 40 minutes, then sat 5 minutes later. This seemed to be a good thing, but what would await us was anything but… all servers ignored us for about 20 minutes until one finally took our drink order. The coffees served were lukewarm in dirty cups. My partners cup was only half full. We waited 30 more minutes for our food order to be taken!!!!! No one approached us this whole time. After waving her down our food order was taken. No water refills no coffee refills no ‘how is everything’. I have never experienced anything like this before. Then of course the food took an extremely long time to come out after ordering. Funnily others who came in after us were being served before us. The food was mediocre at best. Our server was brunette wears glasses has tattoos, she was very inattentive and honestly kind of rude. Snatched menu off our table without saying a word to give it to other guests. Also when we would request something (like the bill) she would go chat with the other servers, at one point she even sat down with them all to eat….i understand needing a break but not sure why the only 3 servers in the restaurant decided to do that at the same time…As someone who has worked in customer service I am extremely disappointed with the experience here. I would never go again and would never recommend it to anyone. Not to mention the bathrooms were disgusting, unclean, I couldn’t even...

13 Nov 2024 - 9pm - Lowering my review to 1 star:

Love coming to this neighbourhood gem - it’s my local go-to after some late nights at work: my colleagues and I love the food, the staff, the vibe. Kitchen is open quite late, drinks are great.

Today’s visit was very disappointing - but is starting to reflect a trend in the past year. Service can still be efficient but mostly soulless. You truly feel you are either a one-timer or a regular. And even between regulars, there are the friends and the others.

This evening was simply careless and inattentive. We came for a few drinks and maybe a dessert. Got to sit at the bar. Between the drama behind the bar and the complaining of colleagues or customers, it was quite uncomfortable to ask for another beverage - we felt we might be disturbing. The bartender also had numerous opportunities to offer other rounds or check on us but chose not to interact.

Their entire energy and toxicity became so comical and quite a clash with our usual experience that we decided to not chance another glance of frustration and leave after only 1 beverage.

These repeated disappointing experiences are breaking my heart as a local. Especially for the staff that do care (if there are any remaining). I’m unsure if the owner is aware or if he has blinders on.

And the lady with long lighter hair really needs to stop complaining so publicly behind the bar. Every. Single. Time. It’s so unprofessional, unpleasant, unwelcoming at this point. Venting can help through service but go do it out of customers view.

Chez Lucien, tu te...

So I will say this, make a reservation.. We went without, but that wasn't really where I had a problem. My problem is that I had never been to this establishment before. We walked in, it was quite busy, very nice atmosphere. We were greeted by a hostess asked if we had a reservation, we said no, asked if there was room for two possibly. She said to us "let me see if I can put you on the waitlist"

That was it, she didn't come back. It got a little awkward as we were just kind of standing there. We didn't really know what to do as we had never been there. After about 5 minutes, we ventured over to the bar area, there was empty seats but thought we'd ask if it was okay to sit and have a drink while we wait. Thinking maybe we were on the list??

They asked if we had reservations, we said no. We mentioned that we might have been put on a wait list?

I suffer from anxiety, and it was really crowded and at that point we learned the hostess had not put our names on a list there was no room and asked to leave.

That's okay, I understand but why couldn't the hostess have come back to us to relay that message instead of just leaving us to wonder and feel like we were doing something wrong and had to be removed. I did feel slightly embarrassed as there was 3 people telling us, no room we had to leave. In front of a packed place.

It just could of all been handled right there at the door when we first walked in, coming back to your customer to let them know...