Chase's Place Cocktails + Kitchen — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

Chase's Place gave me and my party one of the worst, most disrespectful dining experiences of my life. Please continue reading below for a tale of incompetence and disrespected.

Upon arrival, we were seated at a corner booth quickly and were greeted by a friendly server. Immediately after our food was served, we were greeted by Chase, the owner of the restaurant himself. He informed us we were seated at this table by mistake and it was actually reserved for another party. We all understood the mistake and were immediately agreeable to moving to another table.

Chase asks us to follow him to the "Living Room" at the restaurant. We stand up to move and quickly realize NOBODY was around to help us carry our plates, cocktails, waters, silverware, or napkins. So we fill our arms up with as much as we can carry and Chase himself makes us take the walk of shame across the entire restaurant, dinner plates, napkins, and used silverware in hand. He then walks us to the "Living Room" where he spend 60 seconds talking to friends while we stand there in the middle of the busy restaurant holding our food. Finally, he gestures to us to take a seat at our new table; which was no table at all, and rather a bar facing a wall...for our entire party. So we could no longer talk to each other because we were all seated in a line.

After we were re-seated, we were never seen again for the rest of the dinner by any staff. Some us were unable to carry all of our drinks to this new table, so instead of doing the reasonable thing of having staff bring our drinks to our new table for us, they cleaned our entire old table off--glasses, silverware, and all--without bringing us new versions.

Finally, because nobody ever served us after we got our food and were moved across the restaurant, nobody ever brought us the bill. We had to go to Chase himself to ask him for the bill so we could pay and leave. The experience truly peaked when Chase had the nerve to offer to get us the full bill without any discount. After expressing our disappointment with the experience, he then offered a 50% discount.

Our hostess, who was more apologetic than Chase himself, was exceptional. She was kind, professional, and respectful through the entire experience. She took personal responsibility for seating us at the incorrect table; however, that was the least of the problems that happened that evening. It was the way everything AFTER that was handled that made this "dining" experience deserving of a 1-star rating. I genuinely believe Chase's Place would be better served by promoting their employees like the hostess to managerial positions, as she was the only one who exemplified good leadership and professionalism.

To summarize, here is an abridged itemized list of the many examples of poor judgement, lack of professionalism, and disregard for customer service demonstrated at Chase's Place:

Asked to move from a round table with chairs to a bar height table intended for customers waiting for a real table Did not offer any assistance carrying our plates, silverware, waters, cocktails, napkins, etc. to this new table Made us stand in the middle of the entire restaurant awkwardly holding everything in our arms Never saw any server for the entirety of our meal after we were moved Did not offer to compensate any portion of our...

I was super excited to try this place as it was walking distance from my hotel and the shops. I decided to stop in for a semi-early dinner that turned into a late evening great time. First and foremost the atmosphere is amazing,and Bob Ross paints away on the TV by the bar. ❤️ The staff are all great. I sat at the bar and was taken care of all night long. Chase was also there and ensured I had an amazing experience. His hospitality was very much appreciated as he charged my phone since I didn't have a brick with me and my battery was running low. He also helps tables, runs food, and seats patrons as they come in. Food wise I was excited to try items on the menu. I started with the devil-ish eggs which sounded amazing on the menu with caviar. I looked forward to them, but when they arrived I was immediately thrown off. The eggs seems smaller, the garnish in the middle didn't make sense, and upon tasting the filling had too much mustard. Unfortunately, I have had better deviled eggs at family gatherings. I met 3 ladies that came in and sat at the bar next to me and with six eggs as the appetizer I decided to share them. The consensus was the same when asked what they thought of them. I was informed by the staff that there was a new chef that just started so I thought maybe he is just getting used to the menu. Which is very understandable. As my main course I had the Chimichurri Steak Fries. I ordered my steak medium rare, and it came out perfect. The fries were awesome and had a great balance of crispy on the edges with a softer center. These were a highlight. The only downfall was the Chimichurri sauce. In my opinion it was like watery pesto, not the tangy Chimichurri I was looking forward to. Chase apologized and advised it was what they had from the previous chef (a recent occurrence). Other than that my meal was good, but I had already had in my mind I was going to have an explosion of flavors in my mouth. Though my food experience wasn't where I had anticipated I would definitely go back to try other menu items like the cheese steaks. Yummy! The bartender served me delicious cocktails every time. They will create any drink that you request, even those on the menu. Thanks Chase for everything you and your wait staff do for the customer. I look forward to...

So bummed about my experience here and regretted going for our one dinner out while in town. The food was decent, not great but not bad, that’s the only reason for the 2 stars. My biggest and main complaint and reason for this review is that the setting/seating was extremely uncomfortable and poorly communicated so that we could’ve made a call to better suit our needs as a group and based on what we were looking for, had we been given that heads up. We made a dinner reservation there a week before that night for a group of 7 and were told only that it was “patio seating” and would that be ok? To which we relied yes, that was it. We arrived in our dressy attire and heels to be sat at a round picnic table in the yard that should’ve comfortably sat 4. We were quite literally squished together, with barely any room to move our arms, let alone have food and drinks on the table for 7 people, in bench seats with no backs. Through an entire “high end” dinner. One person in our group went up and asked a host if there were any other tables we could be moved to that seemed more fitting for a group our size since there were significantly smaller groups at tables about the same size and bigger tables that were open near us. We were told no because the table behind us, that was better suited for a group our size, was also reserved (yet they didn’t even show up until about 45 mins after we did so the table sat mostly empty while we squished together). By then it was too late, we would be waiting so long to go anywhere else as we sat with that reservation for a week in advance. I’m almost 8 months pregnant. Sitting that cramped together on a wood bend with no back out in the grass DOES NOT match what you’re spending on food here and that’s my complaint. They’re not cheap. You want to charge prices like that, you need to have better seating or at LEAST give people a more thorough heads up as to what to expect so they can make their own decision to keep that reservation or not. Based on how I kept having to stand through dinner periodically to stretch my back and shift positions, I would’ve literally rather been at Chilis and saved my money for a better experience....