Beggar's Banquet — Restaurant in East Lansing

WoW!! How disappointing! I was there Saturday, Memorial Weekend with a party of six for lunch. No wait at the door, and only a third of the tables were seated. The menu is contemporary, but not in a good way. Perhaps they feel the contemporary menu justifies the ridiculous price of $27 for a small Greek salad, pancakes and a can of pop. The Greek salad comes with a lemon vinaigrette, which did not appeal to me, so I ordered the salad with a creamy garlic dressing and blackened chicken. The service out of the kitchen was extremely slow, over 30 minutes. As a former manager of Win Schuler's and Jim's Tiffany, I keep track of these things,. Because of my restaurant background, I am a 20 Plus% tipper. The server never stopped back to our table to apologize for the wait, to see if we needed anything, or to let us know the progress of our meal. I asked the server to please toss my salad with the dressing and put a little on the side. My sister asked for the same. When our meals finally came out, My sister and I both received our salads with dressing on the side only. The food was mediocre, and just because a salad has feta cheese and Kalamata olives, it does NOT make it a Greek salad! Our server never came to check on us to see how our meals were, or if there was anything else we may want or need. Our server finally came to the table to deliver the bill, and told us she would be right back. Ten minutes later, my brother, another restaurateur and 20 Plus % tipper, went to look for our server so we could cash out. When the bills finally arrived for our signatures, the entire table agreed. there was no reason to tip someone who literally only takes your order and gives you the bill...she didn't even deliver the food! When we left, the entire establishment had 7 tables seated. I can't say I won't be back, but I cannot recommend this restaurant to...

Recent downturn in consistency of service and quality of food.

Been eating here off and on every semester or so for the last three years, and can say there’s been a relatively recent downturn in service and the overall experience. They have quality recipes and good ingredients, but recently the quality of the preparation of the meal given the more conservative portion sizes has dipped.

Reservations overwritten, appetizers brought out after entrees, and somewhat slow water refills were the lowlights of my most recent visit. The server—who I can only hope was new and/or nervous—came by with the bill three times before I was even halfway through my meal, and my date and I had only been there for around 30 minutes.

To servers of all disciplines and food genres; customers do NOT LIKE BEING RUSHED. If we’d been there for like two hours I’d totally understand. But it wasn’t two hours, in fact our entire experience was about 50 minutes.

It wasn’t even like the place was packed. There were open seats a plenty; which was the only reason we were able to get a seat due to my reservation apparently being lost or overwritten (I had digital confirmation, so I assume it was a simple bookkeeping issue).

In regards to redeeming qualities, this place still has a great breakfast and brunch lineup, and agreeable atmosphere. Hoping my recent experience was more of a lemon than what the standard...

So it’s really disappointing to have to leave a bad review because last time we were here everything was great. But things have definitely changed.

We arrived at 2:00 and received brunch menus. Picked out what we wanted and waited. At 2:15 our server finally comes over (it was not even 1/3 full btw) and informs us they’re no longer serving brunch. We’re given dinner menus and we all choose burgers to get, two of us adding avocado. 30 minutes pass, no drink refills are given, no silverware or napkins, our server has not come over once to say anything about the delay, and our food comes out a little later. No avocados. Burnt. Burgers should not crunch and be BLACK. We try to eat it but it’s just too bitter. Our server never checked on us either as she kept disappearing. We try to explain to the manager but he keeps cutting us off (we all have been in the restaurant business for YEARS so we’re trying to be logical and understanding) , never apologizing for anything. They took off two of the burnt burgers. Didn’t offer to remake anything.

Fries were choice tho. A+ on the fries.

We won’t be back though...no matter how great...