Maria — Restaurant in Freiburg im Breisgau

There’s no intent to start a war of words here. Not happy with the owner‘s mostly false reply to a previous review. The owner’s reply:

Hi John

You were telling us this story last week. And like last week you had no mail reservation. You never made a reservation. You couldnt show us any confirmation and you were by your own and a group was no where to be seen. Please stop bothering us with such untrue issues. Thank you very much

Our social group’s April 1 event was bowling at Bowlingpark then drinks at Schlappen. We didn’t Maria’s existed, let alone visit it.

. We never heard of Maria until April 2nd when it was suggested by a member of our social events group for our April 8th event. While the previous rater was at Maria’s on April 2nd it was a private visit with some friends and he didn’t speak to Maria’s staff, other than showing his corona immunization. The previous rater knows nothing about any reservation issues at that time.

The previous rater made the reservation via Maria’s website on April 4th for a group of 15 on April 8th. Only Maria‘s is responsible for the functionality of their website and reservation system.

The previous rater was at Maria’s and spoke to the managers at 8:10 p.m. The reservation was for 8:30 p.m. It was clearly stated to Maria‘s managers that this person was the manager of our group and was doing a last minute check to make sure everything was okay before the group started arriving around 8:30 p.m., the time of the reservation. This is our common practice to avoid issues like this (lost reservation) from messing up our evening.

Maria’s managers were clearly shown the previous rater‘s phone log with the April 6th phone call when Maria’s staff confirmed the reservation.

A difference of opinion is one thing. Making untrue statements as above is another. Considering how many low rating reviews Maria’s is recently receiving (15/44 total in the past month according to Google) your time may be better spent solving issues rather than attacking...

I gave them 3 chances over 2 years. It was a mistake every time. Undercooked food. Orders not served correctly. Servers blaming customers. Long wait times for orders...NEVER again.

I knew the former owner. When talking about this place, even they say, ''I am not responsible for anything going on there now.''

I see the owner's responses on other reviews:

No, your staff is not praised. When several people are leaving the same comments (example, your drinks), get a clue and stop making excuses.

Edit for reply to owner:

''ownership not changed in 13 years''

Irrelevant.

''virtually impossible for patties to be served undercooked...''

And yet you have many low reviews for exactly that reason. hmmm....

''Our team receives a great deal of positive feedback daily.''

Not in your reviews, which you obviously don't pay attention to if you can write this.

''...find a place that better suits your expectations.''

As I'm not a picky person, that includes nearly every place in Freiburg except you...

Well below par. Upon arrival on Saturday night, the youngster serving us seemed more obsessed with whether we were vaccinated or not rather than actually providing a decent service. His first words instead of being "welcome" or some such were "have you been vaccinated?" ("Sind Sie geimpft?") in frankly, quite a patronising tone. I was tempted to have a word with him outside, but refrained. His service was terrible. I ordered a White Russian which, after almost an hour failed to materialise. After asking him numerous times regarding the whereabouts of my drink he retorted that it was Saturday night and that drinks take longer than usual to prepare. I don't care what day of the week it is - it doesn't take an hour to prepare one drink. Extraordinary. When it finally arrived I told them to take it back, paid for the other drinks (which did actually arrive earlier) and left. Lame music played too loudly in this place too - Maria is definitely one bar in Freiburg to avoid...