Café Paris — Restaurant in Metuchen

My sister and I dined here last night. We were the only guests in the place. We sat there for a few minutes waiting for the server to come over. To give perspective, I had never dined here before and by the time our waitress came over we had figured out everything we wanted, from drinks, to app, to meals. We got the the Plateau de Saumon Fume as an appetizer (it was good, but for $14.99 I expected more than three small pieces salmon and three huge scoops of goat cheese) and the Nojito as a drink (good, but not worth $6.50 for sugar, lemon, and mint in water). Minutes after we got the appetizer our salads came out for our meals. We had not even finished our appetizer, and I had barely touched my salad, and our meals were out. As a server you should know how to time these things out appropriately. The tables are not big so it got pretty crowded pretty quickly with all the plates. I got the Galette A L'agneau Roti ($14.99) for my meal and my sister got Galette Oceanne ($14.99). Both were good, I had not complaints about my dish. My sister was disappointed because previously when she visited Cafe Paris she got the Salade Au Crabe Farci and the crabcake was broiled then but for her Galette the crabcake was fried. The waitress did not ask if she had a preference, and in my experience when you have two different ways of preparing an item and it is not specified in the menu you ask the customer what their preference is. My sister had to peel away the fried part to get to the meat. She did say that in comparison there was a lot of shrimp in the dish that made up for the crabcake. We had gotten the Oreo Ice Cream Pie for dessert. It is something you can buy at the food store and definitely not worth $8.99. Keep in mind, all through our experience there were fruit flies around us and our food.

Where I got bothered was when the bill arrived. We got out bill and it was $76.34. I had to check the math because that made absolutely no sense. The total was $60.46 BEFORE tax. They are charging the wrong amount for tax here (they still have it was 7.0% but about 6 or 7 years ago it was changed to 6.625%, not a big deal but still they are charging customer extra money and In NJ we pay enough taxes). In addition to that they have the nerve to charge 18.0% gratuity onto ALL bills (they have it in the finest of print at the bottom of the seasonal meals on the table and small enough where it is not noticeable at first glance in the menus nor is it posted anywhere online that I could fine). Not only that, they are adding gratuity AFTER taxes are added, so I am tipping on tax as well. I have worked as a server in many places and many different atmospheres. As a server you ALWAYS tell the party that the gratuity is added. You verbally tell them and/or you indicate it on the check. The server only scribbled out what the printer printed out and wrote $76.34 and circled it at the top. To be honest, I was not impressed with the server at all but I always leave a 20% unless given a real reason not to because I understand how difficult the industry is, but I paid the $76.34 and did not give a cent more because of this. And if the server is terrible I have a right to leave as little or nothing if I please. How many customers have tipped on top of the gratuity because they are unaware the gratuity is added? Gratuity added on all party sizes? It is underhanded and sneaky of both the establishment AND the server. It should be posted at the door, the server should tell the table, something! My sister would have paid the bill and tipped on top of it if I did not know what the prices of what we ordered was off the top of my head. I understand taking care of your staff and wanting them to make money, but this is a notice that should be displayed where the customers are completely aware of the gratuity being added. I will not be going back here just for simple reason of the establishment undermining and ripping off their customers. It is classless...

The worst experience at any restaurants for a long time, I wish I could rate it zero or negative. 90% of food and drink items we ordered tasted so bad and bland, and there was literally no services except basic cold communications. We had 5 adults and 1 baby, the bill came with automatically added 20% tips calculated by hand, and on top of that it says an additional 4% fee will be charged if paying by cards. We were not happy with it but decided to pay by cash, but while we were leaving the waitress came to stop us and said we were $2 short for the cash payment. We pointed out their calculation was inaccurate as they added 20% tip on food and beverage after tax, AND we didn’t feel their food and services deserved a mandatory 20% tip. She rudely pushed back saying 20% tip is clearly stated on menu and if we could not pay the additional $2 they would call police. My friend said ok go ahead call police, while we were waiting my friend saw three policemen passing by so we directly invited the police in to sort out the situation. After explaining the whole ridiculous farce, one police says if the restaurant demands 20% mandatory tip then we will have to fully pay it. I asked if this is a local Metuchen, NJ thing, to which the police answered ‘no this is the entire country thing’. I was initially shocked about the response as my friend and I are Asians and apparently they might take us as some foreign visitors but we live in nyc and we know that’s not the damn truth about tipping. But anyways I said let’s take a step back even if for 20% tip, their manually calculated amount was wrong, as they added 20% AFTER tax plus their calculated tax was higher than the local 6.625%. The police asked the waitress to recalculate to which she refused and said everything was done by computer and asked us to pay the rest $2 plus 4% credit card fee if we don’t have cash left. We refused and insisted they doing better math, it was not about the $2, it was about their attitude, stupidity, disgusting manner and potential discrimination. At the end the police did calculation and said it might be $1 short for cash; they also needed better math teachers as they should give us some money back if calculated with correct local retail tax and before-tax 20% tip, even though they deserve zero tip at all! At this point another friend of mine felt it was not worth of our time and found a few coins for them, we finally left the hell. Save yourself some energy and trouble by avoiding this place, did I mention their food sucks? Good luck...

If you want to learn how to lose a customer, go to this place and ask for the owner Clara. We were celebrating my sister-in-law’s belated birthday and was looking forward to a fun brunch. Clara came to us with an attitude and made us feel at the onset how annoyed she was with some questions we had on the menu. When dad asked his omelet to not be salty, she smirked and said she can’t do anything about it cause the smoked salmon is already salty. So my dad changed his order. But when our food came, dad still got the smoked salmon omelet he didn’t order and my sister-in-law got an omelet instead of the galette she ordered. My dad who never likes to complain didn’t want us to say anything and just started eating. My sister-in-law on the other hand wanted to have what she ordered. Instead of simply taking her plate back, Clara insisted and argued that my sister in law got what she ordered and clearly didn’t want to take her food back. It was only after we insisted that my sister in law wants what she ordered that Clara eventually took her plate begrudgingly. We are a well travelled family who’ve been to Paris multiple times and dine frequently in NYC. Never have we encountered a manager/owner who rudely insisted she was right and wasn’t interested to make things right. When the bill came, I wasn’t sure why the total was so much more only to find out they automatically add 18% gratuity for $50+ bill. So I asked her “But what if we’re not happy with the service?” She simply said “that’s our policy” and walked away. I called her again to ask for her name. She said “Clara and this is my place.” She was proud to announce she was the owner after treating us so poorly. I called her back to tell her “Congratulations for owning this place and treating your customers this bad.” Clearly she doesn’t think she needs us. We are a family of business owners ourselves and we are horrified how an owner can act this way. Very unprofessional woman who shouldn’t own a business in the service industry. After all is said and done, the very least she could have done was simply apologize and as an owner, she could remove the fixed gratuity we felt she didn’t deserve. As a business owner myself, I wouldn’t expect or demand gratuity from someone who wasn’t happy with my service. But not Clara. She knows she can treat us poorly and still get her 18% since it is their policy. So folks, if you want to learn how to lose a customer and meet someone without integrity, please go to this place ASAP and...