The Lift — Restaurant in Garden City

I wanted to email the Lift with private feedback but they don't give you that option on their website so I really don't have a choice but to leave it publicly here.

I've lived in the hood for a about 10 years and this WAS a great go-to when in the mood for a fantastic brunch, pub grub, or hearty take out.

Over the past six months, the few meals I have had there have been really really bad.

I ordered a french dip to go. I got home and there was no sauce and the onion rings were soggy. I called them and told them. They said I could come pick up some sauce and also asked if I wanted the whole order redone. I said, no, but if they would provide crispy onion rings I would appreciate it. I go there and they handed me a sauce - no rings. We went for brunch and the gal who sat us was not at all friendly. They had self serve coffee - during the pandemic! They did not have decaf - which they had in the past. We ordered benefits - the English muffins were not toasted and were terrible. My fiend ordered crispy bacon - which it was not. We ordered a couple veggie skillets to go - one with an egg, one without. They did not ask me how I wanted the egg cooked and when I got home was super disappointed to see it was scrambled...not over easy which is what I would have gotten had they asked ...and what makes sense for a skillet. The dish was bland, flavorless and dry.

It's a bummer this restaurant has taken a nose dive as it really was super reliable in the past. I know that restaurants are struggling but it is so consistently bad it should be noted by the manager and owner. And it would be nice if they gave customers a place to share this...

Short on wait staff, soap in the bathroom doesn't dispense, no other means of hand sanitization offered. (Clearly the cook didn't wash their hands when exiting the bathroom after using the facilities for 10 minutes, then walking straight into the kitchen with their cell phone in their hand)There was inattentive service when someone did have the time to stop at the table.

Groups of guests were expected to maintain tabs over who ordered what, and how many. Whereas its common practice for the servers to track who orders what and how many, while cashing out patrons.

The bar tender was short when asked questions, did very little to attempt to sort out ticket issues, and when matched with the same level of hostility that she had given, took it upon herself to threatened to punch the patron in the face.

Having worked in the service industry for 12 years, never once did I find it acceptable to project my frustrations about staffing issues and customer volume onto my patron. Myself and other staff I worked with kept track of our customers orders. (We used paper, didn't have the convenience of a digitized machine) When a patron had an issue, I took my time to address and sort out any problems.

On the plus side, with some oversight, the Lift has the ability to provide service in a socially distanced atmosphere with more than likely, a higher quality of service.

As I hope some of the frustrations and stress the servers where showing was due to being severely understaffed, the bar tenders toxic aggressive attitude is completely unacceptable and the poorest show of professionalism I've seen as of yet in the...

Our group of 7 wanted to change up our trivia so we came here on Thursday and we won't be returning. BIggest issue by far was the service which went downhill as the night went on.

We knew it would be busy and were all pretty patient. The server took partial orders, ignoring half the table and after continuing to be ignored for another 10 minutes, some of us gave up and just ordered drinks at the bar.

Once we got our food order in, everything came out together. Our server would quickly ask if anyone needed anything and try to get out as fast as possible. We get to the point where some of the party needed to leave so we mentioned cashing out when we had the opportunity when our server was at the table. The response we got was "we'll cross that bridge when we get there". He gave us a single bill and told us to just start marking off who got what. There were 3 items on the tab that weren't ours and when we mentioned it, we got a disgruntled attitude like "who's going to pay for that?", as if it was our fault. Once he came back for the completed checkbooks, he opened them up at the table and shook his head, clearly disappointed with the amount left. As we were leaving the building and driving off, we saw him standing outside in the parking lot looking at us with arms crossed. Honestly, it felt somewhat unsafe and uncomfortable as we...