The Living Room on Main — Restaurant in Dunedin

I had very mixed opinions about this place and wish I could write a separate review for the Management philosophy - will explain later. I sat at bar and had the Pork Osso Buco which was 10 star, out of this world good. Service from Michelle and Bartender top notche - polite, not pushy. Price on menu reasonable.

OKAY, PART 2 - THEY USE a 20% Forced Service Charge which I object to in so many ways - just my opinion - 1. Poor Business Management resorting to trickery - Good intent / wrong solution - intent is to make sure employees make fair wage, thus build this into the price and wage. Do not trick your customers into showing a false low menu price, then you must show the rest of the employee wage as an adder. RIDICULOUS. Poor Product or Service - Shows that Business Management lacks confidence that your product and service will earn a tip, thus you must forcibly extort one. Poor Customer Base - Shows that Business Management lacks confidence in the class of their customers that they will provide a tip if earned, thus again you must forcibly extort one. Offensive to Customers. Destroys the use of the tip as a customer discretionary tool to acknowledge and rate the product and service on a sliding scale by the customer. Demeaning to customers – After the forced 20% service charge, I added a 6% tip and felt really cheap about the low dollar amount, yet the tip in total was 26%, an excellent tip/service charge. With me, I reduce the total tip, sometimes but rarely add to the forced tip amount, thus actually penalizing and costing the servers. I tend to tip 25%, most forced tips are 20% and I normally will not add if Management thinks they know better than me what the tip should be. Is downright unAmerican and socialist fitting other cultures and not the proud, American...

We could not get a table outside, so were seated inside. The chairs were padded and comfy. Rather 60's in style. I had a draft beer and my love had a coke. His arrived before mine. I ordered the mushroom gnocchi and added shrimp, which much to my delight arrived blackened. He had the Bobby Boucher, which is basically shrimp and crayfish in a cajun alfredo with linguine. I almost ordered that as it is what I was searching for on menus earlier that day... Shrimp in a spicy cream sauce with pasta! But say mushrooms and I spin the other way! The gnocchi were pillows of perfectly cooked goodness with three kinds of mushrooms and blistered tomatoes in a cream sauce with my shrimp on the side on the same plate and since I had wanted something with some spice I was delighted that they were blackened. That bit of spice put this dish over the top for me! We both were so delighted with our meals. It would have been nice if my love could get a coke refill but the waiter did everything but attend to us. I almost called the front desk from our table to request a refill. I guess when 20% gratuity is already tacked on some staff can work at a different pace or be less than attentive since you are at their mercy and will be tipping well never the less. The only thing to take those two dishes to perfect would be to serve with some lovely bread to mop up the delicious sauces. We'll be back but I will call the front desk the next time our server is that indifferent to waiting on us. Oh and Mondays give a frontline discount however only nurses are mentioned for in hospital workers. Rather selective since SO many more of us take a beating daily in ERs and TRAUMA centers than just nurses. But police, fire and first responders are also included along with...

Was a great place to eat before they changed to a mandatory 20% tip. Then things went downhill.

We have been going to The Living Room for years and always enjoyed the food. The drinks were always hit or miss, but not a big problem. Now, not only are the drinks hit or miss, the food is also.

The service is not as friendly and welcoming as it used to be (and frankly it doesn't need to be with guaranteed 20% tip). None of the same staff is there either. They seem to now have a rotating staff rather than the regulars.

I ordered my favorite Black and Blue Nachos, but was greatly disappointed that they were not made to enjoy. Rather, the topping were dumped in the middle on top, rather than layered and spread so that you could enjoy the entire plate. Hard to explain, but it was not easy to pull out plain chips and try to scrap crusted cheese and chicken from the middle onto a chip to eat it. (Crusted because it looked like they tried to torch the top to make it have a heated appearance). Suffice to say, this was not the Black & Blue Nachos I ate so many times before.

The rest of the plates were similar - just okay. The care and pride in presentation and service seem to be gone.

Unfortunately the owners instituted a 20% mandatory tip which they claim is fair for the servers. If the service is good, I have no qualms with 20% or more. When it is bad, I give less. In reality, this is the owners' way of paying less in payroll tax. They can pay the servers less per hour, and supplement their pay with tips. More profit for the owner, less taxes to pay! The restaurant shows that this is not working.

We won't be back, there are many...