14 Parish — Restaurant in Hyde Park Township

Okay so normally I have amazing experiences at 14 Parish, I've even left a 5 star review following one of those visits. However, I will say the customer service at 14 Parish is hit or miss, depending on who the hostess is for the night. A few friends and I went to visit 2 weeks ago, as we usually do on Thursday nights, and when we first walked in, the hostess, whose name was Jasmine, told us there was only 1 available seat at the bar, when we could visibly see 3 unoccupied seats. When we asked why we couldn't sit in the other 2 seats, she told us they had a reservation coming in.

Now, this is where things get interesting because on Thursday, February 16, I'd made an Open Table reservation for 4 and in the notes I requested 4 seats at the bar to celebrate the bartender, Alex's birthday. Alex is always amazing, respectful, and shows us excellent service and it's where we normally sit when we come in. But, when we walked in on 2/16, that same hostess, Jasmine, had mentioned "bar seats are first come, first served" so we had to wait for 4 seats to open up, which we had no problem with.

So, when this same hostess proceeded to tell us these 2 bar seats were being held for a 9pm reservation (it was 8:51 when we arrived), we asked her about the policy and she proceeded to tell us if the reservation didn't arrive by 9:15, we could move from our table, to the bar seats. We didn't argue, we accepted a table nearby and proceeded to order.

At 9:15, those seats were still unoccupied so we proceeded to move to the bar. At 9:16, a short young lady with glasses, who we later found out was an employee, came in and asked Jasmine where her seat was. Jasmine then came over and talked to this young lady, about us, for the next 2 hours. They began talking about putting us on the restaurant's "blacklist" where they would basically never have a seat available for us. Some of the servers and the bartender even tried to speak to Jasmine about how she couldn't keep paying customers from sitting at the bar to "hold seats for others" and she yelled at them.

All that to say, we haven't been back since and that left a horrible taste in our mouths about the restaurant. I understand wanting to come hang out after your shift or on your days off, but proceeding to talk badly about customers, in front of them, is absolutely unacceptable, for any restaurant. I'd met the owner Racquel, in the restaurant on Alex's birthday and complimented her staff and how we always have such great experiences, so we tip 25% or more every time we visit, but honestly, this was disappointing and sad to witness at one of our favorite...

My friend and I went there on 4/20/24 and we had reservations. Our reservations was at 3pm and we were there about 20 minutes early, but they seated us only after a few minute of waiting. When she seated us she told us our server would be with us. We waited about 10 minutes and it turns out the hostess was also Our server, and this even a surprise for her. We ordered drinks, and she was very knowledgeable about the menu. 30 minutes past and we never got our drinks. When she finally came back with our drinks after asking twice, she went on to do something else and we still had not ordered. We had been there over an hour and still had not ordered food. Our waitress/host finally came to ask us if management talked to us? Of course they did not. Turns out there were having a flood issue and they could no longer serve food. She apologized and told us the manager comped our drinks, which was nice. Now what I see is not the wait staff, but poor management. I watched management watch their staff sink and provided no guidance or help as they multi tasked multiple jobs with no leadership. Not once did the manager, which appeared to be 2 people help their staff at all. Our waitress/host was handling customers as they came in, calling people on the phone apologizing for mishaps that management should have been handling, as well as serving and appeasing customers who were sitting down without any direction. How do you expect the wait staff to prioritize if there is no leadership? They are over worked and underpaid, and it's a shame to see a place with so much potential on it's way down because of poor leadership. On our way out, the director of operations was like "Hey... sorry about all that" Like really? You said that to us, while sitting down as an after thought? Shame on you. Because management is so poor, I will not waste my time returning back, nor to the other sister restaurant that has opened under this owner. To the owner, please get new Management. Your business...

I’ve been to 14 parish more than a few times over the past year and a half and sadly with every experience it got worse. Every time adding another thing I didn’t enjoy about my experience.

On one visit it was the hostess. I don’t remember her name. Light to brown skin with short curly hair wore a headband. Walked us to our table I told her there was food in my chair and asked if she could get a towel to wipe it off or could I just switch chairs. She looked at the chair and said “it’s clean!”

I proceeded to take one of the napkins from the utensils and wiped my own chair as food/crumbs fell to the floor in front of her. I sat on my jacket to protect my clothes.

Another time the food was just not good. I later learned that the pineapple rice is not something I should get. Noted.

Another time the manager spoke to one of the hostess very rudely and loud in front of the customers. Just very unprofessional.

The last visit takes the cake. The water smelled bad and tasted old. It was an occurrence where both senses are acting at the same time. Gross. Food comes out the cabbage is super bland. The rice and peas… lacked. Rice was hard.

So returned those side dishes and asked for plantains and regular white rice and gravy to go with escovitch fish. I pour the rice onto my plate a long with the gravy. Takes one forkful… nah. The rice smelled just like the water. Like old water that had been sitting. And then I look down and see a bug. Oh I was over it.

While some of the bill was taken care of it could’ve just been an overall better experience. On top of that the manager insisted that the fish might’ve had a parasite in it… Sir, no sir. If that were the case, with the fish being clean and prepared and fried the correct way then I wouldn’t even see the parasite. The grease would’ve killed it. But still even that why say that. Yikes…

I won’t...