Tri-Valley — Restaurant in Dumont

New to the neighborhood, I was attracted to the “family restaurant” slogan when I was passing by, and decide to give a try. Apart pastrami taste bit sour, everything else is what you’d expect from a Diner. My waitress was kind enough to remove the pastrami from my check, but that’s the good part ends. First, when I told my waitress the pastrami is sour, she explained this is fresh from this morning, which is understandable explanation. She then added “it’s what pastrami smells like”, that’s really annoyed me. Maybe it’s my oriental face hide the fact that I am an regular pastrami eater, or maybe the KATZ’s Deli in city did a horrible job for their pastrami, so I couldn’t judge this “traditional pastrami” correctly. Hey, I might be wrong. After all, we are not here to have michelin star dinner, we are here because it’s lovely warm neighborhood diner restaurant. Or is it? I guess my dinner timing was bad, every staff was either eating their dinner, or counting down the minutes for the closing time, not single person bothered to refill my water(I was having 6+ staff around me). Perhaps since I’m alone, my check won’t generate good tips. I am feeling invisibly in this restaurant, and basically I feel like I am in a emotionless fast food store, chain restaurant, IHOP or McDonald, anything but a “family restaurant”. I was so bored, I start to watching my phone, just to see how soon anyone could ask me if I need help or check, finally I got my check after 20 mins of wondering around, I put my credit card on the check, 10 mins later, nobody picks it up. I was bit frustrating, I was about to call my waitress, then I saw the “self check out” option, I guess nobody bothered to explain that to me. So I paid by my phone, run out of this “warm neighborhood restaurant” as quick as I can.

BTW, I gave 40% tips because I don’t want to own the restaurant any money for that sour pastrami, not because the “warmth family restaurant feeling” my...

Dear Tri Valley Restauranteur,

This morning was our first visit to your restaurant. We sat unattended for more than 10 minutes, no waiter, no water, no service. When the waiter finally came to our table, he rudely told me, “I have other tables” as though he were doing me a favor by showing up 😳 There were about 6 booths occupied, and 3 servers. The problem is not the number of tables or the number of servers. The service was simply nonexistent.

The customer is clearly not appreciated. When I asked to speak with the manager, the lady told me, “there is no manager”. No manager? On a Saturday, no less. Perhaps you should consider supervising/training your staff. At least one of them needs it. In my experience , he will keep this condescending, haughty behavior until someone speaks to him.

I have worked restaurants since I’m 11 years old. My career was customer-facing for more than 40 years. In that time I learned and taught good service and interactions with customers. It appears you don’t care about such things. What is a customer to you? To me, it is embodied in the poster I just posted on the Google Tri Valley page called simply, What Is A Customer? I really hope the ideas conveyed help you get a handle on this business killer.

After hearing and seeing good things about Tri Valley, to say I was grossly disappointed does not start cover my impressions. If there were a way to give this restaurant less than one star, I would do so.

Yours truly, A Brand New (and newly former) Dissatisfied...

Update: Mar 2022

Tri-valley reopened this week after being closed for last 7 months due to renovation. A totally different look, with all new furnitures and interior. Looks much welcoming and brighter than pre-reno days.

This was my first time returning to tri-valley after few years, as my previous experience was underwhelming. But this time I had a great dine-in. Loved their renovated look and seems like the food quality improved as well. Loved the spicy shrimp tacos, excellent mix of vegetables, fried shrimp and sauce. Other breakfast items like french toast and break were well made too. We ordered the mickey mouse pancake for our daughter, it was pretty cool, and tasted amazing with some chocolate chips mixed into the pancake.

With much different positive experience this time around, I’ll surely be making more trips to Tri-valley in future.

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Friendly neighborhood restaurant, the food tasted okay, but the portions were big. There are plenty of items in the menu. They got a nice cake sections with many different dessert items. Staffs are really nice...