Salty's on 2nd — Restaurant in Fairbanks

We visited Salty's for lunch and upon entering, we say the sign that said wait to be seated -even if sitting at the bar. That is where we usually sit so we can avoid waiting to get seated, and I own a bar so I like to sit there. We saw several staff walk by, but no one greeted any of us or said "we'll be right with you." It was about five minutes before someone came over to seat the first couple and another five or so minutes for next couple. The hostess didn't come back for over 10 minutes. We saw her walking around a lot though, and the line got longer behind us. No one greeted those people either. When she finally gets to us, she literally asks us if it is okay if we sit at the bar! There were several open seats, so we could have just done that from the start. Granted the place was a little busy, but I think that could have been handled better.

We take our seats at the rustic bar and get handed menus from the bartender. They have a good selection of food on the menu, and it was hard to decide what to get because so much sounded delicious. During this time, the bartender gets our drinks. She isn't very friendly, which is odd for what seems like a lively place. After deciding on a couple of the highlighted dishes on the menu, we place our order only to be told they were out of both things. While we were deciding on plan B, the couple next to us placed their order and were told they were out of one of their choices. It isn't even noon yet and the restaurant is out of at least three things. It would have been helpful for the bartender/server to warn us that when handing the menus. Even better, they could have posted on the sign that said we had to wait to be seated at the bar.

The food came out in a reasonable amount of time. I got red beans and rice with sausage. It was a large portion and was pretty tasty with little bit of spice. My wife liked her sandwich, and it was so big, she could only eat half of it. Their onion rings were perfectly cooked as well.

Overall I would say the service wasn't great; however, I wouldn't call it terrible either. The bartender was terse at best, so it felt like we were an inconvenience. We definitely liked the food though. The couple next to us commented positively also. It was struggle leaving a decent tip for the service we got. The handheld payment terminal tip minimum was 20%. She didn't not give us that level of service, so I had to enter it manually. When we walked out, there were at least 12-13 people in line to get seated. Seems like a very popular...

So Salty's has been kicking around for a couple years now. They made a slow transition over from the Italian restaurant that was there previously, which, cool, NBD, sometimes it takes a while to find your legs as a new business. Unfortunately, after being open for a significant length of time, they still don't seem to have found that balance. They've been slowly remodeling, but unfortunately made the odd choice to have the main entry moved into a main hallway. There's one small server/hostess station. When I came in to pick up lunch (I'd ordered to-go), the server/hostess was standing outside the station, back to the door, rolling silverware. Now, as every server knows, rolling silverware is a pain. And it's good to at least be multitasking while you're doing it. But with the server standing outside the station in the odd entryway, and other workers coming and going thru the hallways, there's kind of nowhere to stand. Maybe stand at the station, face the door and the incoming customers? So then the server did ask if I needed a table, and I said I was there for a pickup, so they hailed another server (?) to take care of me. And they were...fine. They asked if I was there for pickup and then disappeared, thankfully emerging a few minutes later with my order. They then handed it to me, said "STOP STOP STOP" (what, are we playing red rover?) and waved a receipt at me to sign, which we had to step over somewhere else to do because there was still someone rolling silverware on the customer side of the counter. So fine, got my lunch, pastrami melt, cesar salad (+$3.00), and cheese curds. Cheese curds were overdone. Pastrami melt was soggy and had some sort of extremely strong vinegar experience happening (maybe from the mustard?), and the Cesar... wasn't a cesar. It was lettuce with cheese and croutons, with dressing on the side. Which, all in all, was frankly kind of disappointing. So, while I honestly wish this business the best, after a few years, I have to say I'm pretty unimpressed. I just get the general gist that no one there has run or worked at a restaurant before. Was anything TERRIBLE? No. Was anything good? Unfortunately also no. While I do know they have a few decent things on the menu (their fresh grapefruit mimosas are killer), the rest of it is just...not pleasant. I wish these guys well and hope they find their groove. But unfortunately I likely won't...

We came on Valentine’s Day, we didn’t have reservations(that was a faux-pas on our part) so the wait was understandable. When we were seated Larry was our server, he was fine then turned a bit snarky, we both realized it was busy so he was probably stressed because he had other customers needs. (We both work in the food&hospitality industry so we understand how stressful it can get) We both ordered the Chicken Fried Steak, When our food came as he was putting it down he asked if there was anything else he could get us, I didn’t realize our toast and biscuit would be on separate plates so I asked and was met with a bit snarky “Yep, I only have two hands.” And I pointed out that I had ordered home fries instead of hash browns (we get it kitchens mess up when it’s busy) he did have the kitchen drop some fresh ones which I greatly appreciated. When he dropped them off he tone was kind of off putting when he said “What else can I bring you to enjoy your meal.” It was almost like we were putting him out so after that we were afraid to ask for anything else, my significant other got up and got his own Tabasco sauce because we didn’t want to escalate whatever Larry was feeling, even the table next to us said something to us and we started having a conversation about it because they’ve been in the buisness as well. The drinks we ordered were absolutely on point, we were impressed by how the chicken fried steak is hand breaded, the sausage gravy was the best of any restaurant in town, my sourdough toast even thou it was toasted it was light and fluffy, that being said the chicken fried steak fell a little short for me, the chicken fried steak itself was bland, it really needs some seasoning either before it’s breaded, in the breading or both. On a more positive note I had to stop a server named Anne to ask her about her shirt with the saying “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.” We were very interested in buying a couple. She was very nice and even though she wasn’t our server and was probably extremely busy, she took the time to answer our question and she didn’t seem put out by it in fact when she told us you guys were out of that specific shirt she joked with...