Babe's at Harbor Point — Restaurant in City of Utica

I find myself in North Utica, I haven't eaten all day and I'm starving, so I decide to head to Babes for dinner. As I am alone, I decide to sit at the bar. The bar tender comes over and asks what I would like, so I order my drink, she offers me a menu which I accept. She returns with my drink and asks if I would like to order, and I give her my order. All is going as it has the other millions of times I've eaten out alone in my life. She leaves and returns with a bread plate and the check. Here's where we veer off the customary progression of dining out as I'm accustomed to experiencing. She returns with my salad and bread. I ask her, "why would you give me the check before I've even had my salad and bread, let alone my entree, what if I wanted another drink or dessert even?". She replies, "that's our policy". I say, "well I find that rude to be given the check before I've even consumed something yet". She follows with, "you're offended, I'm sorry, would you like me to make your dinner to go?" I say, "no, actually I would like to talk to the manager". If I wanted a to go meal, I would have ordered it to go, or gone to a drive up window. Now the manager comes out, a young man, no more that 30 I think. He asks what the problem is, so I tell him, I've eaten out at many restaurants and sat at many bars to eat my dinner, and I've NEVER been given the check prior to receiving my meal. He responds with, "that's our policy, we've always done it that way and if you want to come back and discuss it with the owner sometime you're welcome to, but I'm not going to discuss our policies with you". So, I tell him that's fine, because I had already decided in my mind to write this review. My lasagna comes out and I shovel into me as quickly as I can, because clearly they don't want customers hanging around as the lasagna showed up before the salad was done, and the check showed up before the salad and I'm feeling very uncomfortable. As I'm digging out my card to pay, I say to a couple sitting next to me, the female of which I happen to know from work and both who were commenting about this under their breaths about why I'm putting up such an argument and other places do it to, so on and so on, so now I tell them to stop judging me and mind their own business. The manager comes over to remove my dishes from in front of me and says, "it's probably best if you don't come back here again". Seriously?! I mean, SERIOUSLY?! My mom & I have been dining out since I can remember, several times a week in fact. I still eat out at least twice a week somewhere, and I have NEVER been treated so poorly in ANY restaurant I've been to!!! I told him not to worry, I won't ever be back, to which he replied "that's good". I honestly cannot possibly express how disgusted I am at being treated like this in a restaurant! I don't care if the owner himself apologized and offered me a free meal, I will never step foot in that establishment again. So bottom line folks, if you want fast (sitdown) food and to be treated like a bum, then Babes is your place, but if you want a relaxing and enjoyable meal while being respected as a paying customer, then go...

TLDR: Okay food, nice atmosphere, horrible service I don't enjoy leaving bad reviews on restaurants as I have worked in restaurants before and understand how stressful and busy the environment can be. However, I had a less than pleasant experience. We came into the restaurant around 7:15ish and were sat promptly and our waitress showed up around maybe 7:30, so overall not a bad start. We ordered our drinks and maybe 15-20 minutes later we finally got them. Granted, it was a table of 7, but considering we were the only other table in the restaurant, I'm not sure what caused the delay. We then ordered our appetizers and meals all at once and off our waitress went. At 8:20, we finally got our appetizers and meals all together. My partner and I had ordered greens, which were alright, but our pizza was unfortunately burnt on the bottom. Being as hungry as we were at this point, we didn't care and absolutely demolished the greens and burnt pizza. During our 40ish minute wait, we were not checked on once, which normally wouldn't have been a problem but half of our water glasses were empty and we had to ask for a refill when the waitress finally came back. Then was another long wait as we ate our food because our waitress was talking to the customers at the other table for what had to be 15-20 minutes. Then she finally asked us for boxes, and we finally got a chance to order our desserts. Another long wait for boxes, which were so close to our table I probably could have gotten them myself (Maybe I should have, I dunno). At 8:45, we got boxes and desserts and then asked for our checks. The ice cream we ordered was good, no complaints there. Then came a long wait for the checks. On one hand, there were 7 of us, and only 2 pairs were paying together, so a total of 5 checks had to be sorted. On the other hand, we were the only table in the entire restaurant. At 9:05, we got our checks. So we stuck our cards into the bill and waited again. Luckily, we only waited a few minutes to have our checks collected and another few minutes to have our cards returned. Listen, I get working a restaurant job is tough. Being a waitress is one of the most stressful jobs ever, and customer service in general is awful when you have naggy customers and busy shifts. That being said, we were here for two hours and the waitress could have easily gotten rid of us like an hour earlier if she just checked on us a few extra times. It's unfortunate as I've been here before and had much better service that time. Maybe it was just a bad night, I dunno. So yeah, decent food, peppy atmosphere, terrible service. Edit: We left at 9:20 PM if...

So, two important things to remember if you're in Utica, NY, and you're hungry: Babe's Restaurant, and Angeline. Our party of four was in Utica one Sunday afternoon in early October 2021 after taking the fall foliage train from Utica to Old Forge and back, and we were looking for a good place for dinner when we saw the good reviews for Babe's. After reading their menu online, we decided to head there to eat. A short drive from the train station, it's a fairly large place with lots of parking outside. Plenty of booths and table seating inside with a pleasant atmosphere. The restaurant was maybe 1/3 full when we arrived around 5PM, and we were seated right away. They have a large menu selection with a wide variety of food: beef, pasta, fish, BBQ, chicken, burgers, pizza, wraps, sandwiches, salads, and more. Our server, Angeline, was excellent; very friendly, engaging, attentive, efficient, and helpful with the different menu selections. Honestly, she was one of the best servers we've had in a while, and the kind of server you want serving your table when dining out. Our orders included a pulled pork sandwich with fries, a grilled chicken sandwich, a turkey-spinach wrap with sweet potato fries, and a 10-oz steak burger with sweet potato fries. It took a bit more than 20 minutes for our meals to arrive, but it was worth the wait. Everything was cooked perfectly and our meals were hot and delicious. The pulled pork sandwich actually had chunks of pork in it, so it wasn't the usual lame shredded pork that many restaurants typically serve. My steak burger was cooked to a perfect medium as requested and was one of the best burgers I've had. My sweet potato fries were cooked extra crispy as requested and were delicious. The turkey wrap and the grilled chicken sandwich were excellent as well. We took our time and enjoyed the food and conversation. The bill for our four meals (with beverages) totaled around $70, before tax. The meals here may be a bit pricey but, to be fair, I feel that the quality of the food and large portions help to justify the prices. *NOTE: I tend to rate few restaurants with five stars simply because many of our dining experiences usually leave some room for improvement. However, based on our outstanding recent dinner experience here, I rated Babe's with five stars, and we've added it as our go-to place for food when we're in the Utica...