B-Line Diner — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

This is literally the worst dining experience I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t even have high expectations since it was breakfast at a hotel restaurant. However, I didn’t expect it to be this bad. The servers move like snails and are rude to their customers. I witnessed two separate tables subjected to their rude, incompetent and neglectful servers who spend more time socializing than working. The kitchen speaks really loudly amongst themselves and all one hears are inappropriate conversations and vulgarities in Spanish. I’m trilingual and could hear their conversations at our table. The hostesses, when we asked to speak to a manager, questioned us as to why we needed to speak to a manager and then stood there and stared at us before getting her as if they were trying to figure out whether they should say no. The manager is a large apathetic woman who isn’t equipped to operate a functioning restaurant let alone deal with guests. The problem starts with her. Likely because of her large size, she stands there semi expediting and doing nothing else. The wait staff huddle around the POS systems chatting and laughing. Our food sat at that window for a long time. Both the manager and the server were at the window while all our table’s food just sat there getting cold for at least 10 minutes. I could see our order from where we were sitting. Finally a food runner brought the food and it was ice cold. We left without eating after waiting in line to be sat despite the restaurant being half empty and then another ten to fifteen minutes of just sitting at the table without even being acknowledged. We had to go up to the hostess to ask if there was a server assigned to the table. Our server had passed us at least three times without even acknowledging us. Again, there was hardly anyone seated and there were at least 10 servers walking like they were actively trying to keep a low heart rate. This “restaurant” is easily the absolute worst part of this hotel. You pay $20 for pancakes and terrible service. I will never ever stay at this hotel again and I would recommend that guests avoid this restaurant at all costs. Go to the poorly designed Market and get a pastry and get on with your day or go to the Pointe...

When I first got here I was seated, and waited a while for anyone to speak to me. It was quite disheartening as I was hoping to make it back to my conference in time. It's a bit of a food desert around the convention center, so I was juggling leaving and being starving or just sticking it out. There was staff everywhere, a woman telling staff everyone is cut, someone counting receipts, it was obvious that there were plenty of people around. When it hit the 20 minute mark, I decided I was just going to leave, eat a $6 bag of chips in the west concorse and cut my losses.

A VERY nice man, named Gilberto started talking to me as he was setting the other tables. It was obvious he was not intended to be my server and was trying to get his side work done, but nonetheless he asked me about my day, recommended menu options he likes, even went as far as to ask about my conference I was attending. He literally saved the entire experience.

Someone came over took my order finally. This person I never saw again.

Lupita took over after my food was delivered and was super sweet and attentive.

It was obvious that most of the staff was very kind and well intended. Just some obvious organizational oversight that I don't blame the service staff for.

The food was delicious! Like, way better than I would have ever expected. I am glad I stayed.

Gilbert came back to check on me and I explained to him that the food was great, and I was truly so happy he changed my mind on leaving. I explained to him that he saved my entire experience and thanked him for his kindness.

He brought me a slice of carrot cake, Lupita was so kind and apologetic.

I told them both it wasn't necessary, it was neither of their faults and I was not upset just grateful, but I think that just speaks to the quality of them both as people.

Looking forward to coming back...

The B-line diner used to be a family favorite but recently we’ve decided to never return. My family and I usually go to walk around the hotel when the weather isn’t great, and we love to stop by the diner for the nachos or ice creams, the burgers are also good. However, a week ago we went for our usual walk and since it was around 9:30PM we thought that perhaps we could still manage to make it to the restaurant for a snack as it wasn’t closed and there was still a hostess up front.

The atmosphere upon our entering was tense and not positive at all, we could see servers visibly uncomfortable with the fact that we had entered the restaurant at that time, even though there were other customers sitting there, and I literally saw them arguing over who should be our waiter. When a reluctant waiter finally came over, his attitude was very quick… and we decided to change our minds about ordering the nachos to make (their) jobs easier since they made it obvious that they wanted us out, and just got coffees instead.

When we went to validate our parking ticket, they refused to validate because we didn’t order food, not only this but they were extremely rude, in the end, my sister got them to return our money for the drinks but it was such an awful experience, we ended up talking to front desk about it.

In summary, we aren’t coming back, it was an awful impression, I know it was late but the restaurant was still open and there was no need to make us feel uncomfortable and then blame us and punish us for not ordering food by not validating our ticket when you made it very obvious that you didn’t want to serve us....