The Dining Experience — Restaurant in Fairburn

If anyone has seen or read any of my reviews on other establishments I’m someone who tries to be fair and honest!

It pains me but not someone who try’s to tear down a black owned business but sometimes you just have to hold them to the same standards as any other business.

I have been at The Dining Experience four times and out of the four times only had a very good dining experience ONCE!

1st time we attempt to eat their the kitchen had ran out of a good majority of the items on the menu. So we left without eating!

2nd time we attempted to eat their a certain Tic-Tok food taster had given them a good food review. Which cause the restaurant to be overcrowded and the wait was super long. So we left without eating.

3rd time the service was slow but the server was either the own or her daughter. Who came out and explained what was going on. Gave us excellent service brought out a tasting appetizer to hold us over. We ordered their Lobster and grits meal which was excellent! (Since then have removed from their menu and no longer serving.)

4th time was today and when I tell you the service and the food was HORRIBLE! We were seated and waited for over 15- 20 minutes before our drinks order was taken. We could see the service was going to be slow because there was only one young lady working the restaurant of 10 to 14 tables. So to help her out we gave her our drinks and meal request at the same time. So we waited and we waited! 30 minutes later l looking towards the kitchen when she comes out and she noticed that I was looking very upset that we had not gotten any of our food. She turns around and goes back into the kitchen. She then comes out to our table to apologize cause SHE had forgotten to place our order into their hand held system. She wrote it down but forgot to enter it. I asked her now that she noticed her error why didn’t she at least attempted to bring us some type of appetizer ie biscuits or grits to hold us over. She tried to explain that everything is freshly made to order. But we are talking at brunch time. You don’t have any biscuits or grits ready? After a 5 to 10 minutes exchange she goes and gets us a (1)biscuit and a (1)bowl of grits ( it’s my wife and I at the table). She ask if we still would like to order our meal. At this point I’m ready to leave but wife wanted to give them grace at this point. She reads over our order as she places it into the hand held system this time. My wife had ordered their lamb chop meal with a cranberry juice. I had ordered a salmon croquette with double sided grits and breakfast potatoes and a strawberry lemonade. Which she told me would be a dollar extra if I wanted a refill. She then asked if I wanted onions and green peppers in my croquettes. When she asked I thought it was very strange.

We finally get our meals! My wife said the lamb chops were just okay. Everything was just flavorless and under seasoned!

I ate only one of the dried out over fried croquettes! The cheese in my grits wasn’t melted and the breakfast potatoes had no salt or seasoning on them.

To add insult to Horror service they attempted to overcharge us never attempting to make it right. Attempted to charge us $45 for the lamb chops. I later found out that they up charge me two dollars for the onions and green peppers! Nickel and Dimming their customers really that’s what they are doing! Then she tries to say she didn’t know that the menu showed a different cost.

I nor my wife or any of my family members who told us about this place will be eating there ever again!

I would really like to hear or see what the owner thinks about the service...

We scheduled a tasting for a baby shower and all the information was given. However, for some reason the owner continued to inform us that she would call us back over and over again for pricing and a date to come in for the tasting. I called and was told that she would call me back. I asked the young lady that answered do you have my information? She stated oh yeah. I should have known then something was wrong. So I waited two days for a return call but nobody ever called me back. I called again I finally got the owner her name Keisha, she said everything is okay she will give me a call. Guess, what that was two weeks ago I’m still waiting. This is a place of business and if you accepted the job to cater wouldn’t it be the right thing to do is tell the customer at this time I can’t commit. This would give me an opportunity to look for another caterer. I seen the review on instagram the guy that gave the review stated ‘she had no customers when he went in and the parking lot was empty'. Now I see why. She's not a good owner and definitely need customer service training. All she had to do is inform us that she could not fulfill our request to cater at this time. We would have understood and moved on. We were lucky to find a cater that’s upfront and honest. I would never recommend her to cater no events.

The owners response is not true, I called several times and her staff continued to take down my number and promise she ( the owner Kesiha) would call back. And, yes the first snow storm did occure but you still did not call days after the storm when your restaurant was open for business and I was calling an open restaurant asking for you. So, what the storm has to do with you calling back when you are clearly open for business? Also, my last call to your establishment I talked to you and you told me I should get a list of pricing and a day to come in for the tasting within a few mins. Again, still waiting. Nobody, in their right mind would take their time to write a review this long if the incident did not occure. Shady, business practice! Instead of replying back with lies you should take heed and don't commit if you cannot fulfill and...

This was my 4th time & my cousin’s 1st time. On my 3rd visit bringing a co-worker (it was her 1st time) she ordered the Chicken & Waffles (her wings were not fully cooked) is was corrected by the staff once it was brought to their attention. On my 4th & last visit (Saturday, 7/6/24) with my cousin, we were only served beverages (Coffee/Arnold Palmer) the Coffee was served without a spoon. I asked the server who was working the bar, she handed us a spoon across the bar (not wrapped in a napkin). We noticed there were others seated after us & their complete orders had been taken. We were sitting at table 3 there appeared to be some type of confusion among the servers with who had what table (make with dreads) because our assigned waiter went to Table 2 & so did the sever working the Bar to take the order. As they passed by I call out to our waiter & said “you haven’t taken our order yet”. By this time we had been waiting for about 40 minutes for our meal choices to be taken. There was some discussion at the register among workers, I went to the register and stated that we were leaving & wanted to pay for our beverages because we were tired of waiting to have our order taken. A female (who appeared to have authority) said who is serving her table? I said this young man but he never came back to take our food order, he was standing in the line to use the register while another server was in the middle of cashing out. The female in charge said, “she wants to pay for her beverages “ the worker was attempting to finish the sale (taking too long) she finally said “Don’t worry about your Coffee & Arnold Palmer”. We left & decided to go to the Cracker Barrel. We mentioned our experience to our server at the Cracker Barrel, he did a chuckle and said it’s not surprising. As a person of color, we try to support our own experiences like this makes it difficult. Lots of things...