Universal Joint Lawrenceville — Restaurant in Lawrenceville

I attempted to make a reservation at the restaurant for the whole week before we went, as I knew we would have a bigger party, and wanted to make sure we could have room, without frustrating the staff. I tried calling - voice mailbox was full, and no one answered. I tried Google Assistant - they couldn't reach them. I tried contacting them through their website, asking if I could make one - dead silence. I tried another internet form - nope.

When we got there, they tried to seat us in the enclosed patio area. It was not an overly hot day, but the sun was setting, and shining directly into the area. It was brutally hot. They should have closed the shades already, to block the sun, and had the fans going to help the stifling air circulate. They could have turned them off as it cooled down.

We tried very hard to make it work, but many in our party were heat sensitive, and it was about 15 degrees cooler OUTSIDE.

We did our best to not be difficult (another reason I tried to make a reservation because of how big our party was) but our hostess really didn't have any idea what she was doing, or what to do. We finally got permission to link up some tables outside. Then, a server came over and informed us that they tried to keep that area free for walk up outside seating, so we had to move to ANOTHER area outside.

After 15 minutes of waiting, with SEVERAL servers seeing us, I found a different hostess and begged for some menus. (Even if they couldn't get our food orders immediately, it would have been nice to be able to order something to drink.) She gave them to me, apologized, and said she'd find a server.

10 minutes LATER, the manager/owner came over and seriously just STARED at us, for several extremely awkward seconds. Then, he said he wanted to know "where we came from." Ummm...a Martian spaceship?! We were then scolded for moving, but we had informed and asked and tried very hard to be accommodating before being shuffled off to no man's land. Our party was not rude or rowdy; we were polite, and calm. We weren't yelling or drunk. We didn't make any rude comments to the staff.

After ANOTHER 10 minutes, with no service in sight, we quietly made up our minds to leave. The owner apologized for us leaving, but made ZERO attempt to stop us. We were polite, but irritated. It technically wasn't his fault, but you would think as the owner/manager he could have found SOMEONE to be our server. There were multiple parties much larger than ours around us, and I'm assuming, even though they were seated, had drinks, and food, that they were taking priority.

All of this could have been avoided if they had answered their phone. If they weren't sure they could accommodate us, and didn't take reservations, I would have gone somewhere else to begin with, and saved them the hassle of dealing with us.

This was a birthday celebration for my sister, and I was hoping to keep her whole experience fun, and thought through.

Again, I could have understood if we had been rude and obnoxious: the only reason we had to move was due to legitimate health issues.

I will not be attempting to eat there again, nor will I...

I wish I'd listened to the bad reviews! It took ages to place my order. Then, the teenage boy who was delivering my food dropped half of it in my lap!!! I was wearing white trousers, so you can imagine!

The kid didn't apologize, didn't move a muscle to help, didn't even register any emotion whatsoever. I ask him to bring me napkins and water, and he strolls off at a leisurely pace. When he finally returned, it was only with napkins. Exasperated, I have to explain to him that I can't clean this up without water too, that the stain is setting in, and so I need him to rush. But again, he walks away very slowly, and then takes forever coming back with water.

At no point whatsoever does he apologize, or express any understanding of what he's done.

When the teenage waitress comes with the bill (which takes forever to come), I tell her what happened. She doesn't offer to give me a free meal, a discount, a dessert on the house, or any of the things that usually are offered in such a situation.

As for the food itself, I had a bean burger and cucumber salad, and both were exceedingly bland - I could have made a better meal at home.

Being as there are a half dozen other restaurants on this street, I highly recommend you go elsewhere. This establishment seems to be hiring teenagers that are too immature to know how to effectively resolve a customer mishap, they seem generally very slow to provide service, and the food that I had certainly wasn't worthwhile.

UPDATE: The owner subsequently passive aggressively responded that: "If you don’t support local kids we might be your best choice to patronize."

Let me just say that taking a dig at a customer's character merely because they object to bad service is terrible complaint resolution!

I absolutely support local kids - I just don't support local kids dumping my meal on my lap, failing to apologize, and failing to do anything to fix it.

I believe that responsible hiring as an employer means taking the time to provide sufficient additional training where there's a clear lack of experience. It also means having responsible adult oversight.

Your response as management should have been "We unequivocally apologize. We'll take the time to train this staff member on how they should have resolved this specific issue."

If customers are paying for a service, they deserve a baseline level of respect. And teenage employees deserve to be held accountable to a baseline level of performance. Furthermore, allowing such a situation to go unaddressed is irresponsible towards the employee, who then has no opportunity to learn, grow, or mature from...

Tried this spot out with a group of seven; to our surprise the place was nearly empty, especially the green area (maybe one or two table only taken). We were told by the hostess that there would be a 45 minute wait due to the kitchen being backed up at the moment. We asked if we can at least sit down at a table and order drinks, completely okay with waiting to order food until the kitchen is ready for new orders. A young employee, who was chilling at a booth near the hostess stand (maybe he's on break? idk but it still looks bad and unprofessional..), popped his head up from his phone over the booth backrest and told us we can order at the bar but cannot sit at a table. Our entire group ordered drinks and moved to sit down at a bench on the patio awaiting to be "seated" to an open table. Let me repeat- the patio was nearly empty, with a few tables still not cleaned and remained that way most of the time throughout the hour we were there. Hostess stated there were 7 parties ahead of us... where? they were no where to be found. One group ahead of us, who had similarly sat at the bar waiting on a table, finally were shown to a patio table where they proceeded to wait another half hour for a waitress to come around and take their order. Finally, when she did show up, the group was over it by that point and decided to leave. Another party of five joined our "waiting bench" after us, and soon gave up waiting and left. Lastly, a party of two likewise waited half an hour for a waitress and then finished their (now warm) drinks and left. Four missed business opportunities (three being large parties) in the span of 1 hour. And yes we waited, hopefully, for 1 hour on the benches with drinks in hand, staring out onto the dead patio. We finished our drinks and headed out. No one came around to check on us or update us if we will even be seated soon. No sense of urgency or concern from the few employees we encountered. That's what happens when you employ a younger crew and (perhaps) not highlight the importance of organization, professionalism, and customer service. I, myself, am young as well and what I saw was very, very sad. It's a shame because the business is in a prime location, with a great opportunity with a big patio like that. I sincerely hope the place hires more staff or retrains their current employees, to (at least), have a better attitude and concern towards customers. I am willing to give this place another try, maybe next time around the environment and staff would be more hospitable, upbeat, and...