Flying Star Cafe — Restaurant in Albuquerque

Now I know why Flying Star locations keep closing. This chain used to be one of my local favorites but now I believe I understand why favorite locations keep closing (Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Downtown Silver, etc..) they simply don't care about their customers. We visited the Alameda location on 8/11/20 and after ordering our food we sat on the patio (because in the midst of covid inside dining was not an option). Our server brought us our food and we asked for a side of dressing. Simple request we thought but she totally forgot about it. We also had ordered a dinner roll with the meal, it never arrived. When we used to dine inside servers would come around and refill water and remove dirty dishes. No one ever came to check on us and we seriously had two full trays of dishes on our table. When I went inside to get my own water refilled I saw five people just standing behind the counter, oblivious that their paying customers were outside being ignored. It's sad to see in these economically challenging time that Flying Star doesn't even care to hold on to those last few customers who try to bring them business. Bye bye FS on Alameda because at this rate I'm sure this location too will be closing too.

Update: The good. The manager or Flying Star Alameda contacted me the next day and provided me a way to contact her. Good of you to read your reviews! She apologized for our experience. Her explanations for our experience: No explanation for why our server never brought me dressing when asked or our dinner roll, just said that is not common. Then explained that they were experiencing a major turnover in staff and said that day they may have been training new people. She said the reason why our dirty dishes weren't removed from our table is because the staff have to change their gloves every time they touch guests food. I don't know (or remember) if she addressed why our water was never refilled. She also said they are super busy right now with online/to go orders, and this is a reason why some employees have quit recently. Thank you for your responses and a few suggestions. When you radically change the way you do business for in-house dining either verbally inform guests what to expect or post a sign so guests aren't left feeling neglected or wondering why they aren't receiving "normal expected" service. As another option provide a place (an empty table) and inform guests they can put their dirty dishes there so they don't have to try and work around the stack of dirty dishes like we had to on their own table. Finally, at the very least, when someone takes time to provide a non-ranting review, at least offer them a gift card to compensate for their experience. My overall thoughts (just being totally honest here) we all have choices on where to spend our money when we go out (and now especially that options are more limited) and it will be a while before we go back to Flying Star to dine in-house as it appears they still need time to figure out how to make the experience more guest centered. We've been to other restaurants that offer service similar to what we've experienced in the past so I know it's possible. The other option with Flying Star is just to order our food to go since this seems like this is where their focus seems to be. Thanks for reading this...

Ordered the green chili cheeseburger with onion rings and a BLT with fries. THE AOLI IS LIFE. Whoa did I just yell there??? I did for the AOLI! This is the second time I’ve eaten at this restaurant, first time dining in & the dine in experience is a must normally I post pictures of the interior. I’m sure others have posted it but you have to go in person at least once.. the food is 5/5 my “well done” burgers seasoning was so good almost like I made it at home with extra pepper and enough salt, the onion rings were golden, crispy, & non-oily which were best onion rings of my life!! And as for the BLT it’s 5/5 I’m not sure how they have the best bacon in the world in there but they do. And again the aïoli I would encourage to get an additional side of it as you are going to want more for each bite you take. OH! I almost forgot about the “Red Stuff” I forgot to take a picture of it but we ordered a large which came out to $5.95 and my honest review I would say 3/5 because I personally don’t like sodas, the flavor was really good however, as described it’s heavy on the juice side with cranberry although it doesn’t taste 100% like cranberry juice. If there were refills on this red juice for $5-6 it would be worth it in my opinion. We also had their double chocolate indulgence slice of cake that we got for free, joining their frequent flyer app and redeeming it while making a purchase which I would highly recommend that as well as it is not too sweet, but...

The staff seemed kind of down - I don't think I saw a single smile the whole time I was in line or being served. I came to grab a small savory snack during my bike ride, only to find that flying star has discontinued soups of the day, so I could not get the cup of soup that I'd been craving for the last couple miles - the alternative option was a big, loaded bowl of caldo (double the food and double the price of the wee cup I wanted). I ended up ordering a grilled cheese (a poor substitute for a cup of soup) with a side salad. The grilled cheese is okay (just a lot greasier than I was craving) but the side salad (full of gross discolored and wilted leaves) came loaded with several very strongly flavored Kalamata olives. I've never heard of olives on a side salad and so didn't ask for a salad without them - my nasty mistake - they totally ruined the salad. Some dressing might have covered the flavor after I picked all of the olives off, but sadly, the salad was dry. What a disappointing visit. I know I'm not the target demographic, as I wasn't coming for a large meal, but I was really looking forward to a quick savory bite at a formerly favorite eatery. It's a good thing that Il Vicino across the street still has...