Conner's Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Indianapolis

Edit:

I would like to thank the second shift manager that spoke to me over the phone on the day of this event. She was so gracious and understanding. She told me to speak with Kim, the store manager and to give the restaurant another try. I spoke with Kim the next day and she was amazing. Thank you so much. I was actually able to order food and it was delicious. I will raise my review score for food and atmosphere.

I will voice another concern on behalf of the group of 8 to 10 individuals that stopped in for lunch on May 9th. The same supervisor Paige spoke to the group. She immediately told the group before seating, they had to share the same bill and split it amongst themselves. They would not give each patron a separate bill. I would like to highlight the restaurant is located in a hotel directly across the street from a convention center. I assume the majority of the lunch crowd are individuals in town on business. This would mean most individuals have an individual expense account with their companies. These companies request receipts for purchases including lunch expenses. If you are unable to provide an individual receipt, you are forced to find a restaurant that can do so. The group of 8 to 10 made the decision to find another restaurant that could accommodate them. In two days, I have seen 3 large groups leave this business unfed which equals money lost. Connor's Kitchen Management:

I generally do not leave bad reviews for restaurants. If I don't have a good food experience, I don't return (easy enough). But having to deal with rude staff is next level. My self and a co-worker were attending a conference next door. We stopped at Connor's to have lunch in between sessions.

We were met at the door by staff, Paige. There were several open seats inside the restaurant, including the bar. All seats on the outside deck were open. Immediately we were told that there would be a 10 to 15 minute wait. No problem. We would wait. My co-worker asked if there was outside seating. Once again, we were told there was a 10 to 15 minute wait. This is fine but we were unsure if the outside seats were being utilized, there were no guests seated on the deck. We ignored the abrupt response. Again, we told Page that is fine, we would wait. She then rudely stated, "you cannot wait there". She admonished us like children. She told us to stand outside or go into the hotel. She hadn't provided us with options prior to berating us. Some restaurants would invite guests to order drinks at the bar. She told us to go outside. I'm glad it wasn't raining or worse snowing. It isn't like we can wait in our vehicles in downtown Indy during a conference.

It's been years, since I have worked in the food industry, but I do provide a service. In my line of work, having interpersonal skills when working with the public and being able to work under pressure, is also necessary. Communicating in a way that is respectful in a difficult situation goes a long way. If you are understaffed, just say so. We saw two other groups of customers leave the restaurant without service.

I had lunch at Chicken Scratch down the street. I waited 40 minutes for my entree. They were very apologetic about the wait. The delicious food made up for the delay. I thanked them for...

The drinks were dangerously delicious, the food was decadent and the service was delightful!!!

First and foremost, if you're planning to eat here for a special event, request Crystal for your waitress! She is exemplary of above-and-beyond commitment to customer satisfaction. She had a huge hand in making my last birthday dinner in my twenties a memorable one! My boyfriend and I live in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, respectively, and we will for sure be coming back to Indianapolis for special occasions to have dinner here (and we will be asking for Crystal)!

Her recommendations were sublime and I will happily share them here:

THE cocktail to order is the Peach Cobbler. If you like the dessert, order this—it's devilishly good. It tastes like you took a bite of a gourmet peach cobbler.

You also must try their Lump Crab Hushpuppies. Don't sleep on these, it makes no sense how these were so good but they were AND they'll have you wanting to order 'em in bulk to take home!

For the entrees, we ordered the Cilantro Marinated Halibut and the Southern Fried Chicken. Not everyone can do fried chicken right. It's not something I would typically order out from just anywhere. Well, Conner's cooks know how to throw down in this kitchen and I'll leave it at that.

And the food was so good we had to order dessert. Crystal informed us that everything is made in-house, which... No wonder everything was so dang good! The only criticism I have is that the dessert menu didn't have enough in-house options! They're food is so good and we want more! (The Gooey Butter Cake was the bomb dot com, though).

Thank you so much for helping me and my man celebrate my 29th birthday. Thank you Crystal for being awesome!

GIVE THIS WOMAN...

What an interesting experience.

I made a reservation on open table to make sure we had a seat in the dining room. The place was almost empty at 7 pm on NYE. When we approached the hostess stand they seemed put off we were even there. We asked for a booth, there was many available, but they said the only booth was in the bar (that was almost full.) We asked for anything in the dining room and they seemed annoyed and said they just sat the waitress there. We said we would wait and they took us over and sat us anyway. Moments later, sat two more tables in booths next to us.

Our waitress, while nice, came by after a while and said she would get to us eventually, as she was double sat. She was polite, but very slow. The food and drinks came out after some time and was okay for the price.

We ordered a small ice cream sundae for dessert and it took almost a half hour to come out. Before it came out, our bill arrived. We had a gift card and the rest we were going to charge to our room. It took her and a manager ANOTHER 20 minutes to deduct the gift card from our bill, although they still didn't figure it out. We were made to feel guilty for even using a gift card in the first place, asked where we got it, then she came out and said she didn't know how to process it.

During this time, we witnessed a server or buss boy carrying a load of dishes and dropped a spoon. The manager seemed like he belittled him in front of many tables. Because of this we didn't even want to speak up to him about the experience.

We finally made it out after over an hour and a half with only having a soup for me, chicken for my husband and...