Sage Restaurant — Restaurant in Memphis

I have NEVER in my life experienced such unpleasant, non-service and unprofessionalism.

I was visiting from out town and arrived around 11pm on Saturday night. I was looking forward to having a great night with great drinks and food. Unfortunately, that’s not how my experience went at SAGE.

The restaurant was packed, all tables were occupied, but we were able to grab 2 seats at the bar. Once we sat down, the server/ bartender did not greeted us nor did they even acknowledge our presence. We initially gave them the benefit of the doubt that ok, maybe they are just really busy will get around to us.

We sat there at least 15 min and chatted. We browsed the menu and decided what we wanted, my date went to the restroom and everything and still no acknowledgement, greeting, or service.

Hmm, strange right? Especially because two people arrived after us, sat directly next to us at the bar and were greeted and service. Wow!

So we finally grab her attention to take our orders and she had the NASTIEST, nonchalant, poor attitude. For absolutely no reason. It was clear that she did not want to serve us for some strange reason??!

So I’m telling her my order, she never looks my direction or acknowledge my me. I ask my date if you think she heard me because she was completely disregarding me.

My date places an order she does the same thing- non acknowledgment, then just walks off. So we are totally confused?? Like did she get our order or what? We were so hungry and ready to eat and drink and enjoy our evening.

So, I go to the restroom and when I come back, my date has a drink but I don’t. I see the server making drinks so I just assume mine is on the way. Haha absolutely not. It never arrived. She made drinks for all other customers except me. We also ordered 2 waters, she gave my date water and gave me nothing.

She continuously checked on the 2 ppl Who arrived after us and served them with no problem but treated us as if we were invisible. Our food finally arrived. It was decent. We both ordered fries with our food but again only he got the fries so we shared them.

My date continued attempting to waive her down to try to get another water for me, inquire about my drink that I ordered, and the fries. No luck, she continued to ignore us and walk past us like we did not matter or exist. I have never seen anything like this before.

Another person was behind the bar, a male. We asked him for the water instead since we were unsuccessful with her. He finally brings the water and at this point I’m ready to leave.

We ask her for the check, she again completely ignored us so we asked the male server for the check. He reads off our order and I let him know that he needs to take off the alcoholic beverage because I never received it and the fries.

My date paid and we left. Terrible experience!! She should not be working on customer service because that was completely unnecessary and unacceptable.

I’m not sure if she is family or a girlfriend to the owner because my brother (who recommended this restaurant) reached out to the owners after I informed him of my poor experience and they pretty much made excuses that she had been working all day and they did not have any relief for her.

However, her attitude and treatment was only negative to me and my date, she was able to serve the party next to us with no problem but completely disregarded me and my date. We watched it all happen. So that excuse does not justify her poor service and treatment to us.

We went across the street to Local on Main Street and were instantly greeted and served upon arrival with the best service. So unfortunately, I will never step foot in SAGE again nor will I recommend it to anyone!

They need to do better with customer service and training the employees. It’s sad because we wanted to support a black owned business but received the worst service ever. I will...

Highlights first, then the rest:

I’m trying to be as fair as possible. The workers there were absolutely hustling, this just isn’t my type of atmosphere (downtown).

I had the catfish sandwich which was 10/10. There were 8 other people in my party and they all mostly enjoyed everything. My niece had the strip steak and fries (she loved it and she is a difficult eater). Others ordered the salmon, impossible burger, chicken etc and there were no significant complaints in that regard.

I hate downtown as a baseline; so, if that’s important to you at all, I paid $30 for parking (right across from the Orpheum on a Saturday night 🥴🫣). Again, nothing to do with the restaurant but definitely soured the beginning of the night amongst other things.

Here’s where the marathon of waiting began. We arrived about 7:15; I’d say most of our party was here about 7:30. I’d totally expect to wait for larger parities as it is first come first served. Long story short, it’s a small restaurant/ they can absolutely accommodate large parities but be prepared to wait. Our issue came with being told they could seat us on their patio (no real problem except for the random men hitting on underage teenagers, emergency sirens and downtown smells 😵‍💫🙂). The rest of our party arrived around 8:30 (so an hour later).

To set the scene, we were the only people on the patio at that time (aside from one additional party that they began serving outside towards the back). Which means well after our entire party arrived, they had to walk past us for at least another hour to serve the other guests. I never told them we preferred a spot inside the restaurant, we were fine on the patio if that’s what would help things move forward but alas, they waited until another large party left and got us inside, about another 20-30 minutes to clean up and walk back and forth.

Another point, the menu was limited as we entered into their late night selection. One redeeming quality of the waitress was she tried to get our order in before the normal menu items were available. Some things were out but we were flexible.

At this point, you may wonder why we didn’t leave? It was my niece’s birthday and this is the place she chose. Thankfully these are a patient bunch of teens and we knew we would eventually get served.

I have a lot of empathy for wait staff; I just hate this place doesn’t have more order in terms of a dedicate hostess. The workers seem to be doing triple duty or more. This makes sense as she was quite aloof from time to time.

In total, we spent about 4 hours here. The food came out quickly once we were inside but this was such an ordeal. We were too tired to make a big deal of anything, choices were made on our part to come when we did and to keep waiting.

Although I won’t be back, take what you will from this; if you’re a smaller party or 1-2 coming on a random weekday, this is probably a 5/5 experience for you. Oh yes and the 90’s...

I’m all for supporting black businesses… This isn’t to bash them but it’s our truth hopefully they’ll take this and improve and excel‼️ To any one that wants to patronize, please do hopefully your experience will be pleasant. BUT SAGE Restaurant 🙄 is a Nnnnnooooooo‼️ 1st we were seated only to be reseated elsewhere due to where we were sitting was “reserved.” Them notifying us drew attention like we stole something, they were loud and talking across the restaurant regarding our move. The owner came out (after making and drinking what looked like a walk me down for himself) and offered us 50% of the food and drinks though the first round was supposed to be on him, then we were told that we may have to be split up due to lack of accommodations for a party, of 5. 🥴 We came together why would we want to sit apart⁉️ So we were asked if we wanted to be seated on the patio (heated) that way we could sit together, we accepted. The patio seating was horrible, the tables they seated us at was terribly wobbly I accidentally leaned on the table and spilled water, almost everytime we moved food/drinks on the table it wobbled. As if that wasn’t enough the chairs scared me, when you sit in them you’ll think you’re going to fall straight to the ground. One waitress started to take the orders (drinks) only to find out she was no longer our waitress when we were ready to order food. 🤦🏾‍♀️ It was the whole encounter for me… 🙄🥴🤦🏾‍♀️ Finally food orders were placed, it took so long to get the appetizers and food, we almost forgot we were hungry. We ordered ooh wee rolls and sticky wings, though we received soul rolls, and we didn’t want to send them back because we’ve already waited a long time. We found out there was some kinda chaos in the kitchen from the 1st waitress. The appetizers and food pretty much came out together. 😐 We ordered catfish & fries, salmon burger & fries, Japanese chicken sandwich & roasted potatoes, catfish & veggie medley. The fish was salty yet no flavor though it tasted like fishy water, the salmon was salty and also lacked flavor, the “roasted” potatoes weren’t roasted yet boiled, the chicken sandwich 🫣 didn’t have panko breadcrumbs as advertised yet it looked like it had the same batter as the catfish, it was tough, and ashy, the coleslaw was more so lettuce, the wings, soul rolls, fries, and drinks (strong) were good. The waitress didn’t come to see if we needed anything else nor to give us refills on the water. So we were ready to go asked for to go plates and the tickets, we received the tickets and to go plates but the wait to pay so we could go was yet again long…. It took so long even after asking another waitress to send our waitress, a guest from our party went inside to pay. Overall (even with the discount), I (can’t speak for the rest of my party) will NEVER go back this experience wasn’t pleasant from the...