Tobacco Road Sports Cafe — Restaurant in Durham

I simply do not understand what happened and I HAVE to air my grievances. 0 stars to service if I could. I will start off on a high note and say that this establishments food and atmosphere were very nice. I ordered the pork rib appetizer and it was great, as well as the fried chicken entree. The bar area and the rest of the restaurant felt nice, and there were plenty of TV's (as we mainly came to watch a sports game). We sat at the bar and this is where our terrible experience began. I love sitting at the bar because it is typically more of a relaxed environment with great/entertaining people bartending. From the moment we sat down I began to get frustrated. I am always extremely understanding about any mishaps with my waitstaff as I have been in the service industry for many years and I get it, stuff happens; but by the end of everything I had no more sympathy for the staff. We sat down and a few minutes after we were finally greeted and asked if we cared for anything, we had to ask for a draft menu to look over. I do not understand why you wouldn't greet your guests or at least ask if they wanted menus, but whatever. Finally after minutes of reviewing the drink menu, the one with the pink hair came back and asked if we wanted anything. We gave her our order, waited, and then received the drinks, but then were not asked if we wanted a food menu. There were three bartenders, not one, not two, but THREE! When we sat down there was a seemingly fully bar and an issue with another guest (which is why I was a bit understanding at first), but by the time we were really getting into ordering our items there was about 6 people (including us) sitting at the bar. You are telling me THREE bartenders can't handle TWO guests a persons and the service bar? Even if one is on service bar, the other TWO bartenders can't service 3 people each? We got our drinks and then it took forever for our bartender (the one with the pink hair) to even make eye contact with me, and when she did she straight up maintained eye contact with me for a few seconds before asking "did you want to order anything else". Obviously! We finally order our food and another round of drinks. Then we are completely ignored. We get our first appetizer (the pork ribs) and nobody checks on how we like them, nobody offers us app plates, or silverware/wet naps (which I do not know if they have, but if you have 2 rib dishes on the menu I would assume you would). I finally have to stop the pink hair one and ask for silverware and she gives it to us, but still no app plates. We enjoy the food while I literally have to sit here and watch them close down the bar in front of us. The entire time, these THREE bartenders are restocking the beer, running their glassware through, cleaning their mats, and having conversations among themselves all while being literally 3 feet in front of me while I need things. Why are you closing the bar down at around 8:30PM when it says you close at 12AM on a Saturday, WHY?! And WHY are you prioritizing that over the guests you are literally inches from?! All I need is a simple "are you good?", I am not asking for much more. We get our entrees and the main pink haired bartender that was "serving" us, is nowhere to be found. She disappears for FOREVER and the other two remaining bartenders still do not acknowledge us. That is the 2nd meal where a quality check was not provided. Then the pink haired bartender appears again, but now she is sitting at the end of the bar ENJOYING HER OWN MEAL AND DRINK! MUST BE NICE! There was no "hey I am leaving, these two ladies will be helping you", but even if that was the case why didn't they acknowledge us?! It felt like we were in no mans land. Multiple times we push our items to the edge and one comes by and picks them up without evening asking us if we wanted another or needed anything else! That is the easiest segway to ask your guest if they need anything! Basically in a nut shell, we felt like an inconvenience, constantly had to ask for service, and employee drinks were clearly first....

I want to start off by saying the food is always great and we normally have pretty good service! But when we came to eat tonight, instead of leaving full and happy, we left frustrated and upset. Read below for details…. 🙂

First, we waited a good 15 minutes for our server, Josie, to greet us. She took our drinks, delivered them and then finally took our food order. Everything’s going fine until we get our food about 20-30 mins later. Mine came out perfect and tasted pretty good (bbq chicken). My boyfriend ordered the eagle pride burger which comes with lettuce onions fried jalapeños and melted cheese but asked for NO onions. When his arrived it looked like just a regular burger with pickles and onions on it. Told waitress this isn’t the correct burger and she immediately put in the correct burger- or so we thought. Another 15-20 minutes go by and we are STILL waiting on his correct burger… waitress the whole time is just cleaning up from a party that had just left (probably left good $$$ and so our table wasn’t worth the time) and when she’s finally done, she walks and grabs his burger from the back. Well, it comes out cold with a bunch of onions and no fried jalapeños… we are pretty disappointed. But guess what the best part is??? SHE NEVER CAME BACK TO THE TABLE AFTER THAT. We had the check on the table for the last 20 minutes and she clocked out and left without checking on us or cashing us out.

My boyfriend & I are both servers and understand that mistakes happen. We understand that we have to be patient as customers- but the service that we received tonight was unacceptable. Josie was very ready to go it seemed like, or she assumed that she wasn’t going to receive a good tip because of her mistake. But the one person that I do truly feel for, was the nice blonde lady that came to our table once Josie had left to see if we needed anything else… she had to clean up our whole table. Not a single item was pre-bussed- not even the first incorrect burger that was served. But hey, at least she left off our drinks, right? The company will be...

The typical "I gave it one star as you could not rate lower." Wish we had looked at reviews before wasting our time with this horrible "joint." Went for drinks and dinner after game having checked out menu online earlier and thinking it looked great. Upon arrival, told there would be a wait for a table as "the kitchen was backed up." No problem, off to wait at the bar. Bar not busy in the least, no orders coming in from servers. Ten minutes later, bartender takes order and I establish a tab. By the time drinks came back, 5 minutes(?), our table was ready. When advised bartender we would go ahead and settle up, another long wait to get bill (bartender was fighting with tape for CC machine). Ok, off to table. Around 10 minutes later, server shows up, asked if we had been there before and says we have a new menu and said someone would be back with waters and to take drink order. What seemed like forever, I don't time things but folks around us were all sitting at empty tables and no drinks as well (lots of water!) We received water eventually and (yay!) waiter returned took drink order and was really pushy as to what we should order but we persevered and order what we wanted.. Then drinks came delivered by the water waiter we had seen earlier. Then another waiter showed up with another set of drinks, which we had not ordered. Then "our? nameless waiter" returned and took our food order. We were NOT in a hurry but by the time our food arrived, we had been in house an hour plus. Waiter apologized by blaming kitchen while advising they were out of my entree and she would get a few chciken breats to go with my yucky salad. Keep in mind she had taken order quite awhile earlier and while we had seen her settling up other folks checks she had ignored us trying to flag her down for another round of drinks. Food we did get was ghastley! Won't even bother describing it other than to say was inedible. Really wished we had gone ANYWHERE else and will never return. Our food and payment may still be sitting on...