J. Gilbert's Wood Fired Steaks & Seafood Columbus — Restaurant in Columbus

Update: I actually email to the owner as requested below and again over a month later and still no reply. This speaks lots of volume of their customer service.

For the first time ever I have to change my review from 5 stars down to 1. It is also said to see that owner replies to anything on 5 star rating and doesn't even want to acknowledge any of the problems. Sad that this restaurant went down so much when it comes to customer service. We've been a customer at this restaurant probably for 7 years or so and our last experience was very disappointing one. I can see that recent reviews are in fact is good representation of this restaurant. Since we first discover restaurant, we have moved but still make time to travel almost 1hr one way to go to this restaurant but it was obviously our last trip there. Over the years, we have recommended this restaurant to many friends, family and co-workers. A few weeks ago - my brother-in-law had asked if we can go all go there. When we arrived - we had asked for the table due to the fact that he is handicap and uses crutches to get around and his legs do not bend. Despite our ask - we had to go up the steps and was put at the booth. To partially accommodate him they just put a chair in the area between the booth and a small table. So any time food was brought up they had to reach over his head. All our steaks were over cooked. and extremely salty. My steak came out well done instead of medium . By the time the new steak came out - the whole party finished whatever they were able to eat because we barely even saw our waitress. My child's glass had a crack in it. Not once did the manager even come out to talk to us. After paying over $300 for the meal for 5 that was not even worth $100, we left because nobody cared. I had sent a note to the restaurant and nobody even bothered to get back with me. My husband could not believe me and actually called and left a message for the manager. Same thing - nobody called him back. I am not sure what had happened but the restaurant had changed and so as customer service. This was our last time to this location and will not recommended to anyone else. Just so everyone can see - below is my review from 3 years ago. Day and night experience. I have never asked for the restaurant to give us free food even that every meal was wrong in some way but a simple apology and a good customer service would be enough. But I guess this location no longer cares to provide that much. Sad.

Review from 3 yrs ago: Absolutely wonderful experience. My husband and I have been going to the restaurant for our date nights whenever we get to have them. Always great service and great food. However, last time we invited our friends who have never been there before. Our waiter was Patrick F. In the past, he made great recommendation on wine and always been right on the spot. This time , he made their experience amazing. He joked around with us and provided absolutely wonderful customer service and top it all, our friend made a joke in the end that he should only get a bill for water because that's all he had. Patrick came back with bill for him just for water and that just made it so funny that we all had such a great time. Now we are all looking going back again for another wonderful...

It has been a week since my visit during "restaurant week" to this location. We arrived 45 min prior to reservation time to try happy hour in the bar. It is a very good food/drink happy hour menu worth a try. We were greeted by 1 of the 2 bartenders. Brooke was polite and expeditious. The other male bartender was off-putting and didn't seem to want to be there. I ordered a pint of Guinness only to be told they were out. The smoked old fashioned and dirty martinis were above average. Our happy hour oysters were cold but appeared flat as if stacked or smothered in ice too long. The calamari was great for the happy hour price, but not worth 15 bucks off menu. Once we paid our bar tab we were seated at our table. The first thing we noticed were multiple dirty tables in the dining area. Servers sit water pitchers and dirty plates on the dividers between booths. Our server was polite but seemed nervous. My wife ordered off the pre fixe restaurant week menu. She was told they ran out of soup and were making more. Her sea bass was prepared perfectly and the lobster risotto was great. I ordered off the regular menu and chose the Bone-in Duroc pork chop with 2 sides. The chop was a perfect mid-rare. However, my upcharged wild mushrooms with truffle butter were cool, limp and not very tasty. The baked potato was worse. It was dried out to the point one side was burnt and the inside if the potato was turning brown. Other missteps we witnessed was the table across from us got their soup after their dinner plates were cleared. The booth behind us received a dinner side after plates had been cleared. Restaurant week is a double edged sword. Places can show off what they have to gain business. That being said, these places often get clientele that usually doesn't frequent these establishments and may not understand what they want or how to order it. It is both a chance for financial gain but servers get stiffed and overwhelmed. We get it. J Gilbert's, on a snowy Tuesday night, was not crowded and overwhelmed but didn't live up to the expectation. Her fish was great and my chop was great, be we were underwhelmed and honestly expected a bit more. Hire a busser and bartenders who WANT to work. Get any expo in the kitchen to make food right. Finally, prep for restaurant week. Running out of soup?? Not acceptable. Not sure we'll be back unless it is for happy hour. Too many other places at same price point to visit. *Update 2/7/22 - replied to generic response from "owner" by emailing the address listed on Jan. 26 (2 weeks ago) and included address, email, phone # and have yet to hear from someone. As a couple who has more than 16 years combined in restaurant business and 1 culinary degree, this probably should have been the reviewer to reach back out to for constructive criticism since we've been there and done that. **Update 2/22/22 - Never have heard from J. Gilbert's after replying to them per their request. However, our dining dollars were not misspent at Ruth's Chris, Cooper's Hawk...

Our family of 3 chose J. Gilbert's for our Christmas Day dinner spot. Service started well with drink and salad orders taken and served promptly. The salads were delicious.

Unfortunately things quickly went downhill from there. As the restaurant rapidly began to fill up, it became clear they did not have nearly enough staff to handle the glut of reservations they had accepted, and that was the last we saw of our server. No more drink refills, no more service check-ins, no more nuthin'.

Eventually our entrees were brought out and one of the meals (mine!) was wrong. It was taken away for correction while my family members hungrily dived into theirs. They reported their steaks a little underdone (ordered medium) but otherwise tasty and sides were quite good.

About 20 minutes later, as family was finishing up, my dinner finally arrived. The bone-in filet which was ordered medium was so undercooked that the meat next to the bone was "out of the meat locker" raw. The steak was also somewhat fatty. In a word the filet was GROSS. The mashed potato and green bean sides were yummy though.

As the last course, husband and daughter had ordered creme brulee, which came out with the top fired coating unhardened so they were just glorified puddings, though reportedly tasted good.

I requested my dessert to go, but the ice cream that was supposed to be part of the dessert was not provided. Husband suggested that J. Gilberts should have offered to serve the ice cream to me at the restaurant if they weren't going to package it to go, which I thought was a capital idea, but one he didn't bother suggesting until we were back home.

So to summarize, for a 3 person 3-course dinner that totalled over $370 without alcohol or appetizers, the food was disappointing, as was the ambiance (it was very cold inside and we were right next to their fireplace), and most of all the service.

This was the third time our family has eaten here and we've always had something that made our experience at J. Gilbert's less than perfect. It seemed just good enough to try again but I believe...