Zola Bistro — Restaurant in Ann Arbor

Believe the bad reviews about customer treatment at the Zola restaurants! My mom died and my family and I planned an event to celebrate her life. Since we used to take her to Café Zola on Mother’s Day, I called Zola Bistro to see if they could cater the event. I spoke to Savannah on the phone and she told me they were available for catering on our date and would be happy to cater the event, and she even elaborated to say Zola catering is unique because they customize the catering experience to the customer and make sure the customer is completely satisfied with every aspect of the catering experience. She told me all I had to do was send her an email and she would get back to me right away. 16 days, 3 emails, and probably 50 ignored phone calls later, she sends me a quick email saying she’s not going to cater the event. She offered no explanation, and even worse, no apology for her complete lack of respect by ignoring my attempts to contact her and waiting 16 days to tell me no, and furthermore doing it through an email rather than a phone call. Now, 2 weeks before the event, we have 100 family and friends coming to town from all over the country to share memories of my mom and they will have nothing to eat because of Savannah’s childish, unprofessional, and cowardly behavior. All other caterers are now booked because of the loosening of Covid restrictions on gatherings this month. Savannah has no business working in the hospitality industry. She even went so far as to play games like getting the hostesses who answer the phone to ask me for my name AFTER putting me on hold, so she could tell them to tell me she’s not there. I’m a paying customer, not one of her ex-boyfriends, but she still thought it would be fun to treat me like one. She also doesn’t even show up to work at the restaurant till late afternoon every day. If my job was that easy, I certainly wouldn’t have a problem treating others with respect. I’ve never been treated so poorly, especially by a supposedly high-end and reputable Ann Arbor restaurant. Since I grew up in Ann Arbor I have lots of family and friends living there, but none of us will set foot in Café Zola or Zola Bistro again due to their employees’ unbelievably insolent behavior. There are tons of other restaurants in Ann Arbor - you will have a better experience at literally any...

I have never written a review before, because I really do not like to complain and especially not about the restaurant industry because it is a hard one to be in. I have the utmost respect for those who run restaurants and those who staff it (it is a tough job!) That being said, I feel compelled to write this review because of how disappointing this experience was: to start, we made a reservation for 9:00. We arrived at 8:57 and were told that we would be seated right away, but were not seated until 9:20. Waiting at restaurants is typically not an issue, but as we were thinking about what to order for starters and cocktails, we were told by the waitress that they closed in 30 minutes, at 10:00 per Washtenaw Covid-19 guidelines. We were completely taken aback, because we had not been told this when we made the reservation, were not told it when we arrived, and were only told it 30 minutes before we had time to even order a drink. This was supposed to be a Valentines evening dinner and a special night out. Neither my partner nor I had been to a restaurant in about five months due to Covid-19, so we were looking forward to celebrating Valentines Day, and also having a lovely meal. We didn't even have time to take a bite of our food before receiving the check. The reason that I am so unhappy with this experience is because we were not notified of the circumstances appropriately. Multiple guests who had been sat at the time as we were were upset about this, and some of them were not even told that they would only have 10 minutes to eat their food. I also feel for the staff, who had no idea that people would be seated at 9:30, only 30 minutes before close. The owner, who was the one who sat us, had a complete disregard for our experience and for the experience of her own staff. The owner even left right at 10:00, leaving her own staff to deal with unhappy customers and spend time cleaning up after guests who were seated much too late. Ultimately, we spent too much money on ubers and too much money on food (that is not a small chunk out of our monthly budgets) for an absolutely...

I recently had birthday brunch at Zola Bistro and was seriously disappointed with the experience. I have been going to Cafe Zola and Zola Bistro for well over a decade and enjoyed the food, cocktails, and atmosphere. It's always been slightly overpriced but the package made it worth the occasional splurge. Not so much lately. I almost never post reviews but this was the last straw. I and my friend ordered the crab cake Benedict. For $22 we received an english muffin, ONE smallish crab cake with a dollop of creme fraiche on one side, and one poached egg on the other side. The plate was adorned with a small piece of lettuce, partial tomato slice, cucumber slice. THAT. WAS IT. FOR TWENTY TWO DOLLARS. I've eaten in fine dining establishments and greasy spoons around the country including NYC, San Fran, LA, Chicago, and many more. I have ZERO problem paying that much for a dish....when it's worth it. There is no reason there weren't two crabcakes and two eggs and since potatoes on the side plus hollandaise. Seriously! I literally just had an amazing benedict this morning in a lovely, highly rated place in River North they managed to provide all that for $14. Also the zola rabcake was just ok, texture was a little heavy, no nicely crisp outside, flavor pretty underwhelming best thing to say about it was it wasn't fishy.

I think Zola thinks too much of themselves. If you're going to charge that amount for that little food every bite should be melt in your mouth amazing. The best thing about Zola's right now is their Zingerman bread. Very disappointing.

Also we let them know it was my birthday and they literally offered us nothing. Again don't need anything but it's something that shows you appreciate your customers when you give them even a cup of ice cream. It just us apparent Zola is more into themselves than...