Somerset — Restaurant in Chicago

We recently visited here with a large group for brunch. The food was as expected for a higher end restaurant. The service was good, not great but nothing to complain or write home about.

As our party was leaving was when things got bad. As we were saying our goodbyes I needed a few napkins. Yes just plain simple napkins. I walked over to the bar and there was a bar tender there. However I figured he would acknowledge me after a while of standing there. After hovering in his peripheral vision for a few minutes I decided to politely get his attention by saying "excuse me". To which again no regard. Mind you I may have been standing 3-5 feet away from him. I tried again a bit louder and finally the person (named Brian/Bryan) looked up and asked what I needed. I asked if he would mind giving me a few napkins. He replied in a rather unfriendly tone "when I'm done" as he pointed down to a few drinks he apparently had to make.

Then I proceeded to wait by the bar for another few minutes in his line of sight and needless to say my simple request was never tended to.

I understand that jobs can be stressful at times, and completely understand that he has to manage the requests from other patrons. But as a server you know that you at the very least need to acknowledge someone. I also understand that anyone can be having a bad day, however this annoyance seemed directed at me as he seemed joyful with the other patrons. I get it, I'm not someone sitting at the bar and since I'm not ordering a drink there is no monetary gain to be had as you weren't the server that received the tip from our table. But you're a part of a team and work at an establishment where service is essentially what you are paying for as a customer.

I wasn't asking for the moon, all I needed was a few napkins to tend to my kid. I was polite. I waited. I left quietly without making it a big deal. But I want you to know that your customers expect more when paying so much for a meal from the entire staff. Not just the person that receives your table's...

This was my second visit to Somerset. The first time the food was great as was the service. Not sure what happened but my second visit seemed to be at a totally different restaurant. My biggest complaint was that our server was HORRIBLE! His name was Michael and he was incredibly pretentious. Kept walking around the restaurant with an air about him like he was the owner of the place not the waiter. We were seated, he handed us our menus, we placed a drink order, then we didn't see him again for 30 minutes. We sat there sipping our water wondering where our drinks were. Waiting 30 minutes for a drink order is incredibly unacceptable. I wish that was the end of our bad service. He kept walking around the restaurant back and forth not really doing anything, then came back and took our appetizer orders. Knowing how long our last drink order took, I then ordered another drink. after 15 minutes, I asked him where my drink was and he replied I didn't know you had ordered a drink, I thought you were complimenting me on how good the drink was. I watched as the bartender made my martini and put it off to the side. Again our waiter was just walking about, after 15 minutes I again asked him where my drink was, he went to the bar, grabbed the martini, brought it over and lied to me that the bartender had just made it, and I told the waiter I knew he lied. He just laughed it off. So twice I waited 30 minutes for a drink order, thankfully he does not bring out the food because I probably wouldn't have gotten it. Sadly, the food on our second visit was not very good either. I ordered the same dish I had ordered the first time. A squid ink pasta with shrimp and calamari. My dish had 2 shrimp and 4 calamari rings in it (yes I counted). For a dish that was $28 it should had more than 2 shrimp. Also my wife had a short rib that and while she enjoyed the flavor, it was very tough. I enjoyed this restaurant very much our first visit, what happened to...

We rented out a private room for a luncheon that was supposed to happen the week after Covid shut down the city. However, we rescheduled the luncheon for July of 2021. The group menu options were completely different, which I can understand because Somerset changed ownership. However, working with the team at Somerset to plan the event was sooo terrible. I constantly felt like I was on the back burner and that they didn't have time for me. I tried to make simple changes like make the food family style, which they said they could do, however, clearly they could not. We got to the private room and there was one long table (as expected). Their definition of "family style" included placing one 20 pound bowl of potato salad for a group of 22 women on a long table. The same thing proceeded to happen with each course that came out (until we had to coach them to do otherwise) -- do you think my 80 year old grandma can lift up a bowl of 20 pound potato salad? The actual salad bowls were never being refilled - we were constantly having to get up and ask them for refills, then they brought out the dessert and there was no silverware for about ten minutes after the dessert arrived (again, we kept having to ask for silverware). Overall, I don't know if they were being cheap and only placed one real server on a 22 person party but the service was absolutely awful. (it was not the servers fault but more so lack of help). Overall, just a terrible experience, which is sad because two to three years ago I loved Somerset. I just don't recommend renting out a private room here. Basically, I felt like I was coaching them on what to do the...