Cellar7 — Restaurant in Houston

The dining experience yesterday was thoroughly disappointing. My advisee and I chose Cellar 7 as a nicer lunch location to celebrate his recent promotion. When we walked in around 11am, the place was empty and we were met with a strong chemical smell, similar to those usually found after a janitor cleaned a public bathroom. Seeing as we were the first customers and they likely just opened the place for lunch, we decided to sit considering the smell was hopefully temporary. Wrong we were, the smell persisted through almost our entire hour long lunch.

Minutes after we sat down, we placed our order and started chatting. Little did we realize, it took an entire half hour for our food to arrive. Given that this is located in central downtown and most people during workdays come for business lunches, I would have hoped for a faster kitchen to table turnaround, at least for the appetizers. Surprisingly, they decided to serve the food items all at once instead of the typical spacing expected between apps and entrees.

When the food finally arrived, I was impressed by the presentation but disappointed again by the taste. The staff had recommended their Kobe burger and truffle fries as a hot combo on the menu, but the burger that arrived tasted dry, had no flavors, and a rather unappealing after taste. I am usually not a harsh critic when it comes to burgers, but I almost worry that the ingredients used were somewhat spoiled.

Lastly, when the time came for the check. I requested the check and was planning to treat my advisee to the lunch, but the server kept giving the check and the final tip sheet both times to my advisee. I can't help but assume that the server saw the two of us, similar in age, one male and one female and made the presumption that the male was in charge of paying for the business lunch, which is a very disrespectful move in the business world. Not only did it embarrass me, but also put my advisee in a very awkward position because he was three levels my junior. I would suggest for the servers to be trained to respect all business relationships and place the check on a neutral side of the table if unsure who was responsible for the payment instead of shoving the check and returning my card with my name on it (an obvious female name) directly to my male counterpart.

With all the above said, I would not disagree that the ambiance of the place is well suited for a business lunch, and the menu item that my advisee ordered, he was very pleased with in portion size and taste. However, I do not plan on returning to this place any time in the near future, until it has had some time to possibly improve in food quality...

CLICK ON NEWEST REVIEWS Additional NOTE: Now they will not stop texting me with all their specials. YOU ONLY HAVE A NEW SPECIAL ALL THE TIME WHEN NO ONE ENJOYS YOUR RESTAURANT AND YOU ARE GRASPING AT STRAWS.

Truly the worst dining experience I have had in years. NOTE: The one thing that was worth the visit was the bartender, Tracy I believe. She was engaging and asked questions and wanted to do good. I was there for a combined 25 minutes max because it is INTOLERABLE. The manager is an idiot on a smartphone and that seems to be what he enjoys. The VOLUME of the music is as if they want to be a nightclub or a strip club. I could not figure it out. There was a table of 6 people who were literally making so much noise screaming that it was the distraction over the music and no one cared to intervene with them. Then, to top it off my food was served and I had taken a few bites when a waiter comes over to the register next to me and doesn't know how to put in an order. So he starts YELLING the order to the manager and it is drinks and food for 6 LOUD people. Literally no regard that someone is sitting next to them. F'ng IDIOTS. You walk in and think this is an upscale restaurant but it is a DUMP. The food is inedible. I got a salmon salad that was so sweet I assume they used all the sugar in the restaurant to make my one salad's dressing. Truly a terrible place to waste your money given the prices.

When I made my reservation they are part of some loyalty club that a restaurant I frequent is a part of and it said you get 20% off your first order. They did not know what I was talking about. The other restaurant is Millie's Kitchen in Garden Oaks area of Houston and this place should not be in the same loyalty program. The manager here could not bus tables at Millies!!! The chef/cook/whatever could not survive at Jack in the Box.

This is a joke for a supposedly nice downtown restaurant on a Saturday night. But, that is probably why there were only 7 people besides me in the whole place at 7:15 at night. 6 LOUD people and one other person at the bar.

Eat here if you are deaf and...

My fiancée and I were initially thinking we'd eat at the Market part of this establishment on a Sunday night and discovered the adjoining restaurant. The server at the register of the Market was helpful and explained one was self-serve, the other side full service. We were heading to an event in 2.5 hours, so we figured we could do the full-service Cellar 7. We were greeted by the bar tender upon entry and the server from the register also served us. The crowd was light (2 couples at the bar, 2 women at one table seated) and possibly 2 servers working. I know that can lead to either a good experience or a horrible one, although it seemed appropriate with the guest #s. Our server was kind and professional. We had an extended wait to order because he was working both sides of the establishment and the order once provided took an extended time to arrive. We began to question if it were entered at one point, but it came out. My meal was a stuffed Chipotle chicken with broccolini it was served wonderfully hot and was delicious! I enjoyed it all. My fiancée on the other hand had salmon with a glaze, spinach risotto and sweet potato chips. He was not as excited about his meal, he was not able to taste the glaze that was to be on the salmon and we both imagined the sweet potatoe chips to be more than more of a garnish topping. However he enjoyed the risotto and he ate the rest of his meal, we did not believe we would have the time to make any changes or request glaze without being late to our next stop which was in waking distance. Overall, we enjoyed each other, the atmosphere was great, service was not horrible at all, but could have been better. We understood that our server was working multiple roles. My food was great, my fiancée had a so-so experience but we felt that it is worth another chance. We still had a good time together, although we did not have time to order a dessert, ...