Eleven Waters — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

Allow me to regale you with the story of our 2 hour and 15 minute experience at Eleven Waters:

It’s a gorgeous day out. A cool 32 degrees with a bright blue sky. Perfect for a birthday brunch for our 2 friends. We make a reservation for the 8 of us, but call ahead just to make sure everything is ok. The woman on the phone curtly informs us we have no such reservation, and we’ll have to wait an hour. But, luckily, she was incorrect, and there is a lovely table by the entrance waiting for our party. A few minutes after the last person arrives (1 couldn’t make it, leaving us a total of 7), we are promptly greeted by our waiter, Tiffany, and are able to order fairly quickly. After half an hour of laughter and fun, our food arrives. My omelette, unfortunately, was missing an ingredient, and the side I ordered did not come. Tiffany was a tad taken aback when I asked for some credit back on my order because it had been messed up, and I didn’t care to wait another 30 minutes for my food. But, after being informed that I could not be given a credit, but that I could be given a free drink, my side came, and I was given a free chocolate milk. Thank goodness! Up until now, everything has been smooth sailing, with some errant gusts every now and then. But at this point in the story, my friends, the wind dies out on us. Tiffany takes the initiative to come ask us if we’d like to pay together or separately. We kindly request separate checks and go back to conversing. Ten minutes pass and we notice it has been a while since we asked for the check, but we’re not worried as we still have 20 minutes before we need to leave. Another few minutes pass by and someone I assume to be a manager tells us in passing that Tiffany will be back in a bit, sorry for the wait. “Oh good!”, we think “Only a few more minutes!” Lies. Deceit. After a few more minutes (maybe ten?), the Karen of our group stops a waiter walking by and informs them that we’re going to need our check pretty soon. So we wait. And wait. Eventually, it gets to the point where my friends are going to be late for work, so I volunteer to stay behind and pick up the check. It’s been around half an hour now. My friends leave, and now it’s just me waiting at this table. It’s worth noting that the restaurant is fairly empty. After five or so minutes, Tiffany returns with our 7 separate checks. I ask if she can put it all on one card because, naturally, all my companions have gone. Slightly annoyed, she reminds me that we told her to put our order on separate checks. I tell her that her memory is in fact correct, however everyone had to leave because they all had places to be, and it was taking a while. “Well that’s what happens when you all ask for separate checks,” she tells me. Great. She curtly informs me I can’t pay for all of them with one card (why? I do not know) and that she has to go back and recombine the order into one check. I give her my credit card and she walks off, leaving me alone again. Ten minutes pass and I finally see Tiffany at the hostess table, frustratingly picking apart 7 checks and lining them up. Then she walks off once more and is lost from view. She returns a few minutes later asking if my name is Anthony. I, confused, tell her that that is not my name. She defensively waves Anthony’s credit card and mine and says that she just didn’t know which one mine was. Awesome. After a few more minutes, she arrives at my table with a pile of receipts. She gives me them and gestures to the one large receipt containing everyone’s total. She thanks me for my patience, to which I reply “No problem.” She explains that it took a while to recombine the checks, and I ask why she couldn’t just ring them all up separately using my one card. Apparently, it’s because they were running out of receipt paper? Cool. She then proceeds to stand behind me, watching me sign the receipt and waiting to see what I put under “Gratuity”. She clearly wasn’t happy with my “———“, and stormed off, leaving me to collect my pile of receipts and, after over 45 minutes, exit...

We went there for a nice dinner during Downtown Syracuse Dining Week and was hoping for a nice experience. We had a reservation at 6:30 and thought it was not open yet when we arrived. It was very quiet and fairly empty. We first started with drinks. Ordered a couple glasses of wine. The Pinot Noir was fine but the glass of Zinfandel was like vinegar. The smell was of rubbing alcohol. It basically was opened for too long and still served to us. They brought us a new glass of a newly opened bottle. The menu for Dining Week included a 3 course meal for $35 per person - Appetizer, Soup or Salad and then the main entree. The appetizers started out great. The ceviche was excellent with the Swai fish and the shrimp gyoza was delicious but only had three dumplings. For the second course we had the Panzanella Salad. The essence of a good Panzanella Salad is the toasted bread. That is typically the highlight of a good Panzanella. The bread was very soft and not toasted at all. Finally, we ordered the Cioppino for the entree. Usually a good cioppino has a great broth with whole seafood such as clams, mussels, fish etc. It should be served with toasted slices of bread. The cioppino came out in a nice presentation but fell short as the seafood was in the form of a smash. The seafood aside from the mussels were all in a cut-up smash of vegetables and some seafood. It was disappointing and reminded me of a “seafood putenesca.” And it was served with a large loaf of bread. Not toasted of course. So when we were presented with the dessert, there were only two choices, both chocolate. We then had to ask for coffee. The waitress then asked if we need cream and sugar. We got the flourless chocolate cake, which was very good BUT….I did not get my coffee for about 15-20 minutes and I gave up. I really wanted the coffee WITH my dessert. Nope. The conclusion is….this place has great potential but I foresee it possibly ending up closing someday. The only saving Grace for them is that it’s a part of the Marriott Syracuse hotel. If it was not for that, this place...

My friends and I arrived about 7 minutes ahead of my OpenTable reservation of 12:45.

Waited until 12:45 and hostess did not acknowledge us the whole time we were there. She stood right there working on menus. She seemed upset, looked at us several times and never said anything. Another staff person, who it turns out was the manager, passed by and also said nothing and did nothing.

In the meantime a busboy (man) carrying a tray walked right up to a three women also waiting, Put his hand right up to their faces and said “Out of the way, please”. Our jaws dropped at how rude he was and how close he got to their faces. If he was my employee he would have been terminated on the spot.

12:45 the hostess told us we she could seat us and started to move to the table. I told her we actually had a reservation and asked her why she had ignored us all this time and why the busboy was so rude to the others. Had something happened? Why was everybody so cranky? The manager and the busboy overheard this to which the busboy said “I said please”. My friends told him he had been very rude to those ladies.

The hostess apologized and showed us to the table and I asked her on the way if anything had happened. She said there was a very large unexpected group that was rude and made some wait staff cry. Ok, so there was an incident and people are tense. I get it.

Our waitress came over. Very pleasant and took our drink order and food order. Coffee and drinks came soon after. Then we waited.

At 1:40, about 50 minutes after being seated, we had not seen the waitress or received our food. I went to complain to the the manager Allison who said they were serving the food, table by table in the order received.

I sat back down and the couple next to us who had been there maybe 15 minutes got their food. So at 1:45 we got up and left. An hour after being seated.

As we left the restaurant manager smugly said “ Have a nice day.” I guess maybe we were punished for questioning their lack of...