Seasons 52 — Restaurant in Indianapolis

We went back, and it was SO GOOD!!!

Wow! What a great night with my beautiful wife.

Last time we went to Seasons 52 to celebrate my wife's birthday. We ran into a few setbacks with service. Rachel, the manager responded perfectly and took great care of us. I left a previous review about that experience, but I'll say it again. It's great when everything goes perfectly, and Seasons 52 does that almost every single time. But, when things don't go according to plan, character is revealed and Seasons 52 showed us what a class act they are last time.

Tonight we went back to celebrate the 4 year anniversary of the night we got engaged. We were greeted kindly and were waiting for our table when we ran into Rachel again. She remembered us and thanked us for coming back. I've been in customer service for many years, and you can always tell when someone is being genuine in their interaction with you. Rachel was, she was genuinely happy to see us, and it almost felt like running into a friend we hadn't seen in a while. I know that may sound strange, but that's the way it felt. There was so much genuine warmth in her voice.

We were soon brought to our table. Our server Bianca was friendly and so good at her job. She was on point with every part of our dining experience, and she took time to connect with us, but was never intrusive. She was busy too! She was waiting on at least 4 other tables, and I watched her interact with each one with that same happy and genuine warmth that she was showing us. She always managed to be there for us whenever we needed something. As a former server (25 years ago) I don't have a problem getting up and grabbing a water refill if my server is "in the weeds", but it's really great when I never need to do that because our server is that good.

Again, the service last night was flawless, and the food was fantastic! The sirloin they were featuring as part of their fall menu was tender like a fillet and cooked to perfection. My wife has Celiacs, dairy, and soy allergies, and Seasons 52 always does an amazing job of accommodating her food allergies and providing her with great tasting food. Last night was no exception, and we had a great meal and time together in celebration of that awesome day 4 years ago when Susan changed my life with that beautiful phrase, "Yes, I'll marry you!"

My wife and I have both been in the food and service industry, and when you hear genuine praise like this coming from an employee, that tell you that something good is happening. It's a reflection of culture and a sign that the leadership team is investing and serving their staff. That level of service ripples out to every part of the restaurant/business, and it's a powerful way to change the culture and the atmosphere of a place.

As we left I asked to speak to Rachel. When things go great at a restaurant/business, or I receive exceptional service, I like to share that with the management team. They always hear about the things that go wrong. I want them to hear about the great things too. It's my way to express gratitude and balance things out. Plus I love seeing that smile cross the face of a leader when their team gets it right.

I shared with Rachel our experience with the amazing service, food, and overall great visit that we had. She smiled and thanked us again for coming in. We also told her that we helped to celebrate Bianca's birthday, and we told her about the story Bianca shared with us about the way the staff feels about her. You could see those words sink in, and this beautiful smile appeared on Rachel's face. It was a perfect way to end a fantastic meal.

If you want a great meal and great service, please take the time to check out Seasons 52. Word to the wise, put in a reservation, this place is busy because...

Went on Mother's Day -- never again. We arrived early for a 530 reservation and were seated by 530, but then things ground to a halt.

Water came quickly, and then it was a while... finally we were asked about appetizers and my wife ordered hers, and the waitress took off without getting my order. I flagged her down and got that taken care of.

It was close to 45 minutes before ANYTHING came out -- first my wife's appetizer, then bread (which WAS very good), then my appetizer -- one at a time. I'm not in the business, but my wife has been, and she reassured me that I was correct in expecting appetizers to come out together, or in fairly rapid sequence.

Meanwhile we ordered our dinners, and long after we finished our appetizers and were filling up on bread, we asked what was taking so long. A few minutes later, dinner came out (together, which is of course correct) and was tasty.

Our server spent a good deal of time behind the bar -- no idea if this was her choice for some reason, or if she was assigned there, but that was time she was not waiting tables, and it showed. And since we were seated near the bar, it was glaringly obvious that she wasn't just taking care of tables when we waited for her to visit our table (I will concede that being near the bar did NOT expose us to the noise that is often the case with such a location).

In the rest room on the way out, I caught a conversation between what seemed to be the manager and another employee, lamenting how people didn't understand how busy they were on Mother's Day. He mentioned the number of meals they serve, compared to a typical day, and it was a LOT! But they still were seating walk-ins from when we arrived to when we left.

In my opinion, I understand that it's hard to turn away business on a busy day, but I've been other places where they pretty much did so ("I'm sorry, it will be two hours"). If you don't have enough staff to take orders and cook the food in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of attention, you need to understand that you shouldn't seat people and give them a bad experience. Take reservations compatible with your personnel capacity! I've been places where they apologized about slow service due to personnel shortages on the wait staff or in the kitchen, but we were not given any reasons for the very slow service other than "we're really busy."

Not only will we never go back on Mother's Day, our experience has put us off from another visit at all. Too bad, since the food was good -- but the experience itself took too much away...

Terrible service. Our server was Ruby. She was non attentive and took zero time with the table . Our total time at the restaurant was an hour and twenty minutes.

This was our first time going to this restaurant. I chose this restaurant because of its reputation. My friend chose to order wine. When he asked our server what wine they have she tersley responded "red and white" instead of asking him what kind he would like, or what he was thinking of eating with it, she suggested an pricey $81 bottle that he did actually get.

The appetizer arrived before the wine. Never once got a refill on waters at the table. I was thirsty as I abstained from wine.

She took an extremely long time to take our order.

We were asked before we took a single bite out of our food if everything tasted good, (yeah, we were taking pictures) then almost forty minutes later (no refills on drinks - ever) we had to flag someone down just to get our ticket. Took her another 10 minutes for her to arrive with desert presentation, after specifically informing them that we were already late for our other plans. I had to forcefully tell her that we just wanted our tickets so that we could leave. Add another 10 minutes to get our tickets right and process payment, we were finally on our way...

For a restaurant of this caliber, this was absolutely the worst experience I have ever had at any restaurant. Something I would expect from Denny's.

The food price was low I thought for the reputation, but the portion sizes were small, and 2 hours later, I am hungry again. Maybe the small portions is why the price seemed low... and there were a few things missing and otherwise off that I would have liked to seen at the table. For example, typically I see lobster served with drawn butter or citrus. This was non existing, as was our server. The Lobster was chewy according to the guy that ordered it. The trout I had was overseasoned and the haricot verts were cold on both plates. Probably due to lack of attention from the server not running our food in a timely manner.

The cooks honestly did an exceptional job.

Overall I would absolutely not risk getting COVID to go to a restaurant that was so highly reputed, and highly disappointing. I had really been looking forward to going here at some point in my life, and now I can say I will never be back. I would not have wasted the time, nor the money, nor risk being out in public at such a busy place to have been so underserved.

Thanks...