The Black Sheep — Restaurant in East Lyme

I come up to Niantic to relax and to enjoy the lovely town of Niantic from my stressful business in the Hamptons on Long Island.

I have gone to the Black Sheep with the close friend and sometimes her friends,,

It is close by and had been a delightful place to go have a cocktail or a snack or a dinner.

But recently I have to tell you what's been going on We stopped on my last visit ,perhaps a month ago, , our visit to. The Restaurant was at the end of the weekend so not very busy, we decided to sit at the bar where there was maybe two other customers .. To try to get a drink from the bartender/princess (as my partner commented), Was more interested in texting friends and watching TV than attending to anyone needing to be served.

Even when you called out ,it took a lot of effort.

we got our drinks , Decided on a second , Same result . Finally As a nightcap for the evening , I ordered some coffee ,(which was Tepid at best) and a piece of cake. to go with it . Cake never came,

Again this is all while 4 people sitting at the bar,

Finally after I finish my coffee which was quite old probably brew two hours earlier, The slice of cake came out as we were paying our bill ,and said forget it. The cake was supposed to come with the coffee.. No apologies, just attitude after refusing the cake, And then again this evening we came after a lovely weekend up in Maine, Stopped in ,was thinking about a bite to eat. Had a couple of drinks, ordered the drinks , But have you ever had a drink where the bartender is looking in a different direction as if they don't want to even talk with you ? It's that kind of attitude and feeling you get dealing with the bartender this place . how do I say? Attitude!

Once again, the bartender was a young woman, That wanted to talk more with her boyfriend or whoever and not deal with a couple of older people that were taking her time up . We all picked up on it after first comment, Seems like she could care less about being there,

When my drink was finished was not met with a friendly , can we get you another sir, Was more, are you going to drink another one?

When I said yes that would be lovely the drink came back with the bartender looking away in the other direction... this happened a couple of times as if I had run over her cat or something. . is so angry at us or something? that was our comment as we all picked up on it..

I wanted to say are you angry or just the way you normally treat people?

Twice this month we have gotten this kind of service, And I had been there quite a few times earlier on different occasions with different friends. .. sat out on the patio the waitresses are outstanding, the food is wonderful.. the atmosphere is great, the location the same, beautiful. But your bartenders are so unprofessional ruins the evening, So what...

A busy night, but CERTAINLY not the busiest. The inattentive hostess,TORRI, asked for our phone number, as she claimed there was a 30 minute wait for an outside table. We gave her our cell number and asked for a menu to browse while we waited. We went outside to check out the menu. As we looked at it, within 15 minutes, 3 tables cleared. NO call. NO text. We went back in, returned the menu and stayed within clear sight of our hostess in the bar area. After over 35 minutes, we asked how close we were to getting a table. TORRI looked terrified. A server, ANDREA, quickly took over for a speechless TORRI, and confidently said to choose a table and she would take our order. We sat. We waited. We were greeted by yet ANOTHER employee who now said the kitchen was closed. The looks on our faces, I’m CERTAIN, made it well understood that aside from being hungry, we were NOT happy. We were promised our orders would be taken, as they were all aware of their neglect. We were offered drinks. They never came. Another server offered us drinks. We told her that we ordered them already, but they never arrived. She was right on that. The FLAT sodas gave us something else to be unhappy with while we waited for our meal. The drinks were removed. Upon ANDREA’S return, she was proud to tell us that the drinks (which were now gone) would be taken off the bill, as ALL the soft drinks were from the same tap and would also be flat. While I was appreciative, I don’t see how there was ANY other alternative. I asked if there was a nearby gas station that sold soda. I was directed to one only a few doors away. Since ANDREA was NOT kidding, I walked up there and got drinks to have with our meal. Yeah…I walked to a gas station to have drinks with our meal at a restaurant. That’s a first for me !

The bill, the only thing that was brought with any hurry, was brought to us before our 2nd bite. Seemingly, this meant that we wouldn’t be offered dessert. By only their SECOND attempt , the meals were correct ! I can’t give 0 stars, so the fact that the food temperature was appropriate, they earned that 1 star !!

Since the kitchen was closed, this means that the 20 something crowd arrives for the Karaoke and the bar. I don’t mind loud music or bar noise, but this whole debacle created our ability to eat our dinner while the bar-going college kids blew cigarette smoke right at us.

I tipped the server generously, ONLY because I won’t take money away from someone who comes to work. But think….was the tip truly EARNED ?

Never never ever again. And if you’re smart, you won’t go...

The food was very good. We say out in the patio without a wait. However, the parking lot is next to the patio, and since we were there so long, it got dark out, and we had to contend with headlights in our faces while we ate. That sucked.

We had to wait a LONG time for our food. Again, the food was good, but we had no idea we would be there for so long. We were looking for someplace after a soccer practice and ended up being there about 1.5+ hours. Most of that was waiting for food.

When the food finally showed up, we each got a fork and napkins handed to us. That's it. I needed a knife for my salad and the cioppino shrimp and to help get the clams and mussels out of the shells. A spoon would have been great for the broth. My husband got a knife for his salad, so we shared. My granddaughter just had to nibble at her ravioli on the fork. They were too big to pop in her mouth. She was so hungry that she didn't want to wait to have them cut. She just finished a 1.5 hr soccer practice, then had to wait for the food. We played several games of tic tac toe and the dot game while we waited, then she played a computer brain game.

I didn't think it was exceptionally busy. We got there about 630 and left about 815 or 830pm.

The staff was nice enough, but not overly attentive. I saw several people waiting to pay their check, and I had to flag our waitress down to take our check. It's probably understaffed. No one ever checked to see if we wanted more water. Got a quick, "Do you need anything," as the waitress was walking by and our mouths were full. But, for the prices we paid, I'd at least...