George & Gather — Restaurant in Chandler

One Star – Unwelcoming, Unprofessional, and Downright Disrespectful

As someone who works in the hospitality industry, I know what good service looks like—and this missed the mark entirely.

My group and I were seated at an empty bar in this sleek new spot in the heart of downtown Chandler, expecting a solid experience. Instead, we were flat-out ignored by the bartender for a full ten minutes. I believe Holly was her name. She wasn’t slammed. She had a bar back, a second bartender in the well, and what looked like a few managers floating around. Plenty of support, no excuse.

Two couples arrived after us, were immediately greeted with smiles and full service, and even closed out before we had our first round. Meanwhile, we never got a hello, a smile, or even a glance. It was very clear this bartender had zero interest in serving a group of young women—her demeanor shifted entirely when serving older patrons, suddenly chatty and engaged. The contrast was not just noticeable, it was offensive.

When I asked to move to a table and voiced our concerns, not a single manager thought it worth their time to come check in. No apology, no acknowledgment, no water (after asking) no follow-up—just cold indifference. Not even a thank you when we paid. Ageism is alive and well, apparently, and being young is enough to earn you attitude in this establishment. We left after almost an hour of being blatantly ignored. It was incredible.

New restaurant or not, this is a bad look. After hearing so many great things about this spot - it is clearly overhyped. Hospitality starts at the door, and if your team can’t be bothered to show basic respect to all guests, you won’t last long in this town.

Save your time, money, and energy—go to ANYWHERE in downtown instead. You’ll get better service, warmer attitudes, and actually feel like your business matters.

I'll be making sure my friends, family, and fellow industry folks know to skip this...

Really great new restaurant in downtown Chandler. They serve breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. We went for dinner, on opening night, and I was very impressed. Unlike many new restaurants that open without taking the time to properly train staff, it was like George & Gather had been open for a while and running smoothly. Service was fantastic, food was amazing, drinks were very good and the vibe/setting was very nice.

The front of the building has a really nice outdoor seating area with the main bar having seats on the outside as well. The bar and the interior decor is beautiful and modern.

Our waitress was extremely nice, helpful and just did a hell of a job with service. We ordered the wagyu meatballs as an appetizer, which were good, but next time we are definitely trying the bacon wrapped dates because they looked incredible! For main course we split the Carne pizza and the pasta pomodoro. Both were excellent but let me tell you….the pizza…especially the dough, was absolutely delicious. The 130+ year old sourdough starter they use for the dough elevates their pizza to a whole other level. We finished with the apricot cheesecake which was also so good! Cocktails were unique and excellent.

I know it’s a brand new restaurant so management is heavily involved right now, especially with making sure service and customer satisfaction is perfect….but I truly hope that continues. Having the general manager stop by our table and take a seat to speak with us briefly, share some details about the sourdough, point out how all the cocktails are named after a “George” and then to notice my lady ordered a stronger cocktail and offered to make her one he knew she’d really enjoy was just excellent service.

We will be eating here regularly…even if it’s a night where we just come in for...

This is the second time I have been to this restaurant and I was excited to go back. I brought 8 new people with me who were there for the first time. I expected my experience the second time to be on par with the first. But unfortunately it was not. While the whipped goat cheese was the true star of the whole night, our service was super lackluster. The first time I went to this restaurant, the waitress set us down and explained the whole menu and a lot about the restaurant, which made it exciting to order things. Our waitress this time did not do that. She just took our orders and that was basically it. Additionally, we saw a lot of people there around us for birthdays with candles in cheesecakes while we were eating. Although, we did not come to this restaurant for her birthday, one of our friend’s birthday was literally the day before so we told our waitress. All she did was say happy birthday to her. I don’t know if she thought we were lying, but we were not, and this kinda put a weird vibe on our table because we expected more. Finally, my pizza was just not as good. I don’t know if it was the service influencing my taste buds, or just that night, but it tasted very average to me. I do thank the waitress for keeping my drinks refilled because she did an excellent job at that. But the whole experience was super “meh” and may stop me or my friends from coming back when I saw this as a place I could frequent last time.

*Also, please make your whipped goat cheese appetizer with 6 pieces of bread. 5 pieces of bread is a super weird sharing number (feels kind of scammy to be honest) and it’s a lot of cheese. I have ordered this twice now to share and always wish we had one more piece of bread. It’s so simple. 6 pieces of...