Manning's Steaks & Spirits — Restaurant in Littleton

I will not likely be going back.

SERVICE - My primary complaint is about the service. I made reservations well in advance to take my girlfriend to dinner on Valentine's Day. My reservation was pretty early (4PM), so the restaurant was not very crowded yet. The host sat us at a smaller table in the back. I requested to be seated at a booth and my request was denied despite there being several open booths. I explained that I had reservations and inquired about how they determine which parties get a booth, and they avoided answering my question. I shrugged it off at first thinking maybe the booths were being reserved for larger parties that would be arriving soon. As more people started arriving, I noticed that other couples were being seated at the booths rather than larger parties. These couples were middle-aged and older while my girlfriend and I are a bit younger. I can't help but suspect that ageism played a factor in my seating accommodation being denied. I believe that whether a customer is 25 or 52, reasonable accommodations such as seating preferences should be granted when they are choosing to spend their money at your establishment.

FOOD - The menu was quite underwhelming, so there was not much to choose from. My girlfriend is not into seafood, so her options were even more limited. My pasta was good, but mediocre considering the price. I believe you could easily get similar food at chain restaurants like Olive Garden and Cheesecake Factory for a fraction of the cost. The steak that my girlfriend ordered was really good though and was cooked exactly the way she asked.

Also, we arrived during happy hour and they decided not to include the happy hour food items that day, but the drinks were still available.

ATMOSPHERE - Nice, but nothing special. Certainly not nice enough to justify the overpriced food items.

CONCLUSION - My waitress was very friendly and attentive. She accommodated us the best she could despite the newness and dysfunction of the restaurant, as well as the limitations placed on her by her management - so she earned her tip. I was excited to have a new restaurant/steakhouse so close to where I live, but I'm disappointed in...

The worst dining experience I’ve ever had!! From the moment I walked in the door it was issue after issue. This is a new location, staffing should be up to pair as well as the customer service and unfortunately it was not. I will never return and I have nothing nice to say about this place. The hostess were very rude and inconsiderate of my booth request. They told me that a booth was not available even though I was looking directly at two available booths. I was told they were reserved but oddly enough, sat me in a high top next to the booth that was available the entire time I was in the restaurant. It took 20 minutes for my friend to get his drink from the bar and while waiting for our food for over an hour, we noticed a couple not happy with the food and sent back a steak that was over cooked. My table also noticed some guest near us were sat well after we arrived. This table was clearly familiar with the staff and they were served food before us with double the people getting served at this table. We were never served our food and this table was almost done. At this point, we requested that we just pay for the drink so we can leave. This is when a manager came over and told us the food just got done after an hour of us waiting. She asked if we would like it boxed up and they would take care of a portion of the check. Why would I want to pay for food to go when I’ve been sitting in the restaurant for over an hour to eat at the restaurant? I found that very rude and inconsiderate. She then returned to the table to ask us again and clearly she just wanted us to pay for a portion of the food for profit reasons and get out of the restaurant. We denied the offer and requested to pay for the drink and leave. They offered to take care of the drink so we left and went to Texas Roadhouse where were served with excellent customer service and experienced no issues. I don’t see the point in spending double at a “steak house” with poor customer service when I can go to Texas Roadhouse and get the same excellent service that...

I really wanted to Like Manning's but way too many things went wrong. Basic things that a restaurant should handle without issue.

The TLDR is we actually did not eat together, thus it was multiple meals in reality: All the food came out, but a mis-prepared burger so our daughter watched us eat Issues with the Cajun pasta, so my wife watched up eat After much delay the Cajun pasta arrived and we watched my wife eat

Not exactly a good experience and my review is reflective of this. More detail as follows.

Food: My steak was fine, not great but good enough. My wife had the cajun pasta, which on the first try was not good, barely warm and had a piece of plastic in it. Gross. It took about 15 minutes for them to send a replacement back to the table, which is not acceptable, so I question how the kitchen is managed. The second Cajun pasta was hot and well prepared and my wife though it was delicious. My daughter had the jalapeno burger which was not prepared per her order and that had to be re-done, almost timely with that one but still an avoidable mistake. Then we ordered desert, which took forever to get out but otherwise ok, nothing more.

Service: While our server was nice, I prefer competent and more attentive. The kitchen service was worse and clearly having a bad night. See above for 2/3 of our orders being messed up. Likewise getting food from the kitchen was far too long especially as all were screw ups by the kitchen. As well, it took forever to get our bill picked up and paid. I will say the server did a good job escalating to the manager, who was apparently ignored by the kitchen.

Atmosphere: Zero, no effort was made to damped sound in the space so it is all but impossible to hold a conversation. Treating the ceiling would have been a good investment. Parking is tight, less spaces for the restaurant than it really needs.

Overall, an underperforming and unimpressive kitchen, lack of customer focus led to a poor experience. Would I go back and give them a second...