Bleu Monkey Grill — Restaurant in Little Rock

Sorry for the long post..

The service from the beginning was horrible!

We went out to celebrate my mothers 70th Birthday. We arrived at 7pm got on the waiting list and was told it would be an hr wait for a party of 25. As we are waiting outside, it's now right around 7:50 and we notice there are two more large groups that went in way after we have been placed on this list. I go back in to ask where we were on the list, the hostess said "Ya'll are next, after I seat this group that made reservations." He seats them, now there is this other group of 15 is trickling in, they did not have a reservation. He asked how many in the party they told him, as I am still standing there the hostess looks across the room, said" I think we have an area we can put you in." He seats them immediately!

This caused an issue, it is now a little after 8, and we are still waiting. I asked again how long will it be, we are going into the second hr of waiting? He said "ma"am, I don't know, you will have to wait until one of the larger groups finish and we clear the tables." I asked for a manager, it took about 10 mins before he came over. Everything was explained to the manager, he apologized and said he would get us seated as soon as possible that he needed to check on seating. I go back over to the hostess and I asked him, how could he seat a group that came after we did? We were never offered the option of being split up where 15 people could have sat in that open area and the others be placed elsewhere? His response was "They only have 15, you have 25." just (RUDENESS!!) and never did get an apology from the hostess.

It's now 8:32, we are still waiting, there were 4 booths that had been available/vacant the entire time I had been going back and forth with the hostess, I pointed them out and said please let the older patrons be seated at the booths that are behind you in the back, they cannot continue to stand and wait? He said "Let me ask my manager." the manager comes back and said yes, we can sit them at the vacant booths, and in fact we were going to place your whole group on this side using those (four booths) we were just waiting for the larger group in the middle to finish.

Needless to after waiting 2hrs, we were all finally seated by 9:05. Now they are rushing to take everyone's order because they are closing soon (10:00). Couldn't really enjoy the food, so I can't give a review there as we were having to pack it to go.

If there had not been so many family members and friends that came out to celebrate my mother, I would have gone somewhere else. I have never encountered anything like this, the entire waiting experience was unexceptable!

Side note: The manager did offer my mother a drink. but that was the only kind...

We were excited to try this new restaurant, but unfortunately our experience did not meet our expectations. We made a reservation for a Friday night at 5:15 pm. I received some texts stating our reservation was for 5:15 am. I called and left messages at the restaurant asking for a call back to confirm our time since we were going with 5 people and had a timeline, but this did not happen. Thankfully when we arrived to the restaurant we were able to get a table.

We started off with bar drinks. I ordered the huge King Kong which tasted good but was low on alcohol content. There is complementary bread and some kind of olive oil dip for the table. It was ok. We ordered fried calamari for the appetizer. It also tasted good but had no crunch and was just kind of floppy. You have to decide if you want marinara or cocktail sauce or pay extra to have both. We asked for cocktail. We received marinara. The waitress who was very nice and deserves 5 stars rectified it. This is where things started to go downhill.

I ordered the fish and chips. I was expecting what most people would expect with fish and chips.. a nice filet or two of cod, battered and fried, and some thick cut fries. What I got was a plate of jumbo fish sticks and very subpar frozen fries. I ate part of one fish stick and it was not good. The breading fell off immediately, it had no flavor, and the fish was dry. I ate a couple of fries with generic ketchup and it was also not good. I called the waitress over and quietly told her I did not care for my food and could I send it back and get that portion of the check compensated. She took the plate and came back a few minutes later with it packaged up and said the manager told her there are no refunds. I asked her if she would ask the manager to come talk to me personally and he did. He was also very nice but he told me the owner has a policy that if you order it you pay for it. I explained to him that I had mostly enjoyed my drink and appetizer as had others at the table, but that I felt what I ordered was misrepresented and wasn‘t good. I told him I would have been willing to come back another time and try something different but I won’t frequent a restaurant that doesn’t stand behind their food. He was still shaking his head no at this point and finally I told him I would be writing a truthful review about my experience. All of a sudden he was able to give me a 50% discount on my entree which I accepted.

Of the other four people at my table, only one actually liked their entree and that was the jambalaya. The food is what I would describe as “plastic”. Previously frozen, heated up, not great. Overall the experience did not leave me feeling good, it put a pall on our evening, and I left hungry. I...

We went to the Little Rock location on a Friday evening around 730. There was a small wait to be sat, but nothing major. After being sat, we waited about 10 minutes for a server to come by to at least say hi, what we got was one server who came by, nodded and walked off, then a few minutes later another server came by and said 'what do you want to drink'. It's like nobody really knew what was going on. After that hiccup, however, service was relatively decent, if not average.

Food wise, I ordered the Razorback burger and my wife ordered the Shrimp Po Boy. We also ordered the bang bang shrimp and fried pickles as apps. The apps were actually pretty good, although once the pickles started to cool, they became a soggy mess of nasty.

My burger, ordered medium, came out well done, dry, and really not all that good looking either. Due to the slow service, I didn't send it back -- thankfully I was full from the shrimp. The wife's po-boy was decent -- but it too was dry, lacking any sauce that one would expect on a po-boy.

When we were ready to leave, our server went MIA after asking if we were ready for our check. Luckily a manager came by with a portable terminal so we could check out. As I was finishing checking out, the server came by with our check.

Now here is why they are receiving 1 star, rather than the average 3 that they would otherwise deserve: Nowhere on the menu did it say there would be a 1.5% surcharge for using a card. Nor was there a sign anywhere visible near the front wait area. Of course, being as we never received a check, I can't tell you if it was listed there, but I doubt it.

If you are going to charge a supplemental fee for something that should be included in your costs to begin with (because, lets face it, nobody pays restaurant checks with cash these days), then at least have the decency to post that you are cheap somewhere in the establishment. I refuse to trade with shady companies, and this is about as shady as it comes (hiding fees). So I doubt I will be back anytime soon unless the owners either stop charging this silly fee or be transparent about it up front before you...