Browns Socialhouse Manning — Restaurant in Pilot Sound

At what point do most people get up from their table and walk out because of not receiving any service at all? Is it 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or 20 minutes? What is reasonable? Well my wife and I left after 20 minutes had passed with nobody coming by to give us any service at all. This review is zero stars, but you have to pick at least 1 star to even post the review.

My wife and I walked into Browns Socialhouse Manning at 5:00 June 5th, I know it was 5:00 because you can't miss the digital clock on the wall right beside the "please wait to be seated" stand. So as soon as I walked in the Manager approached me, and I asked him if we could sit outside, he said "of course" and motioned to the girl at the stand, she grabbed two menus and followed me to where we were sitting. She put the menus down at our table and said "a server will be right with you", that was the last person we saw. There was one other couple seated in the outdoor space as well, and a server was going back and forth serving their table. So we assumed the server would make their way over to us, nope. After a while the same girl that was at the check in stand, that seated us, came out and started setting other tables with napkins and utensils, she set the table right behind us, and I was hoping that she was going to notice that we didn't have anything, no water, no drinks ordered, nothing. Off she went back inside.

After 15 minutes, I went inside and said to the same girl at the stand, "is anyone coming out to take our order", and I noticed that there were 3 servers standing in a 2' circle right beside that stand. She said "I'll get a server out to you right away", as I'm looking at the 3 standing there. I go back to my table and now I'm quite frustrated because I saw the 3 servers just standing all together. Keep in mind that this was 5 o'clock on a WEDNESDAY June 5th, there were NO hockey games on, NO baseball games on, NO football games on, the place was no busy at all. The girl at the stand failed to tell any servers that we were out there, EVEN AFTER SHE CAME OUT TO SET TABLES right beside us!!!!

Well we sat there for another 5 minutes, with still nobody coming out, so my wife just wanted to leave and go to another establishment. She went to the vehicle, I went inside and asked to speak to the Manager, and those 3 servers were STILL standing together in the same 2' circle right beside the stand at the front door. I took note of the time on that digital clock on the wall and it was exactly 5:20pm. Well unfortunately the Manager wasn't available at that moment, so a lady came over and presented herself as a manager, and guess where she came from...that same 2' circle her and the servers were standing in. She kept saying "oh no", "so sorry about that". She started to say "let me...", but I cut her off and said, "nope, my wife is already at the vehicle were leaving".

So we went to OJ's on 167 ave, we sat down in their outside space, I took note of the time we sat down (PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF) which was 5:32, amazingly a server knew we were out there and took our food and drink order at 5:34 (we knew what we wanted since we've been there many times before) the drinks came right away and our food was placed in front of us at 6:OO. Now would we go back to Browns Socialhouse or OJ's...What would you do? The style of establishment is basically the same, the food and prices are basically the same, but what can you say about the service, are they the same?

WHAT...

I don’t normally write bad reviews because I also work in customer service, so I get how hard it can be. Tonight my partner and daughter went for dinner with a couple of friends. We originally started off with a different server, just for a switch to happen before the drink order was even placed. The new waitress (Mackenzie) was very monotonous and not super interested in taking care of us as a table. The drink orders were put in and brought out quickly - which was the only good service we got of the evening. My partner’s beer came out warm and we got an excuse as to why it happened, rather than to simply just pour another beer to clear the line out to get to the cold beer. It then took 15 minutes to come back for a food order. She seemed much more interested in chatting with her coworkers. We also waited for at least 20 minutes for dishes to be cleared out. When asked if we wanted desserts, we ordered three cheesecakes to go, 1 on our friend’s tab, and 2 on ours. They only brought out 2, at which point we already had paid our bill. Mackenzie then said she could open up another tab and input another receipt for us to pay for it. My partner said she had been waiting for the dishes to get cleared for awhile. Mackenzie then automatically asked if we wanted to speak to a manager, with a huge amount of attitude (my partner was not being rude, just making a statement, as the plate was still sitting right in front of her).

When the manager came over (long blonde hair - we didn’t get a name) all she had to say was “in her defence she had 4 tables and a lot of the younger women can’t handle people being rude”. The location was clearly short staffed despite not being busy. Despite the abysmal service, we were very willing to go on our way without complaining until the manager didn’t take our concerns seriously, and blamed the customer on “being rude”. We did end up getting the third cheesecake on the house, which was appreciated. Overall we felt very snubbed by the team, which resulted in a very sour taste in our mouth, after coming in an hour and a half out of town. The attitude of all the people that we dealt with tonight was unacceptable for being in the service industry. My partner would like to speak to Lucas, the general manager, at his earliest...

I wish I could give 0 honestly. We came with a large group tonight, and had a reservation. We had one extra person (me) who, couldn’t fit at the table. Half the table was booth seating, the other half chairs and I happened to be on the end where there was no more room (everyone was snuggled together as much as possible). We asked for one chair so I could pull it up to the end of the table and join the group and were told we couldn’t have any - very rudely I might add. We saw unused chairs both inside and outside. I sat away from the group for nearly an hour, was planning on visiting a little and then leaving. Finally I believe someone from our group pushed back a few more times and they managed to bring a patio chair from outside so I could join the group. I’ve never been at an establishment that would treat paying guests this way.

Other guests waited 30+ minutes for drinks, as simple as a Coke. The server was taking food orders without having first brought (or even offered) drinks to everyone. When it came time for me to order, I wanted to confirm with the server that the brownie was gluten free as my celiac son was only having dessert. She said no, I mentioned on the menu it says a G next to it, she responds with “it’s gluten friendly” so then I asked “does it have flour in it”, she rolled her eyes said she needed to check and left. And finally, one of our guests received his dinner 30-40 mins before all of the other guests so he sat there awkwardly waiting while his food got cold.

I understand it’s a busy time of year and we were all very laid back in terms of the service - all those things are minor compared to the chair saga. I worked for many years in the industry and am appalled at both the server and management of this place. Given how I was treated tonight, I will never return to this restaurant again nor would I recommend it to anyone. Earls, cactus, (literally anywhere), way...