Chicago's Home of Chicken & Waffles — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

Part 1: First and foremost, I did not want to leave this review just off the strength of this being a black owned business, however, after several weeks of pondering on my experience I decided that this restaurant should be made aware of my horrendous experience in this establishment. I have literally been treated better at a dollar store. I visited this restaurant on Easter Sunday with my son and two friends -- one being my son's Godmother. This was a complete last-minute decision. The day before, I hosted my son's 2nd birthday party and before his Godmother traveled back to our hometown we decided to have lunch together. She had heard great things about this restaurant, so I was intrigued to try it. I mentioned my son's party the day before because I was extremely tired, therefore I was not dressed my best especially for Easter Sunday. I had on some biker shorts, a Shirt and some Sandals. There was no dress code, but I will certainly explain later why I mention this. My son's Godmother and her cousin arrived well before me and my son because I came from Murfreesboro (34 min away) to try this restaurant. When we were close, my friend said it was an hour wait so there was no need to rush. When we arrived, we waited an additional 30 minutes together and there was still no table available. My friend went inside to check with the host, and she stated she didn't know how much longer it would be. None of us had eaten, but we remained calm because they were obviously super busy due to Easter. My friend mentioned she told the host it was 4 people, so I went inside and let the host know to please change it to 3 because 1 guest is a baby who will more than likely sit on my lap. I asked if this would help move things a little faster and she said yes. We waited an additional hour to be seated. Yes, we waited 2 hours because we figured everywhere would have a long wait due to it being Easter Sunday. Once seated, we reviewed the menu, and all agreed it looked great! We sat for 23 minutes, and no one stopped at our table to say anything. Literally nothing! I saw a gentleman with a black suit on, locks, and glasses so I stopped him, and my exact words were "Hey I don't mean to be a b** at all but we've been sitting here for over 20 minutes and no one has stopped at our table. Could we please at least get drinks while we wait." His persona gave that he was aggravated that I even said something to him. He got our drinks and when he came back, I looked him dead in his face and said "thank you so much." No response. There was a table across from us that had been waiting a long time as well, so he told another gentlemen with locs to take their order and then take ours. When he came to our table, he didn't make an introduction, ask if we had been there before or anything. Seriously, I could not even tell you his name. We placed our order and waited. About 35 minutes passed and no one followed up or offered us refills. My drink was completely gone as I was sharing it with my 2-year-old. The waiter told me my son's order came with a drink, but I assumed it would be brought out with his food since another waiter had already brought our drinks. After about 15 minutes a waitress came and sat some mac and cheese on the table. We were a little confused because nothing else was brought, but my friend did order a side of mac, so we assumed it was a part of her meal. She didn't want to eat it alone, so she didn't touch it. Let's not forget to add she couldn't touch it because no silverware was given. An additional 20 minutes passed and by this time I was fed up. My 2-year-old was hungry, we all were hungry, and the service had been so blotchy in a sense. I went to the hostess stand and ask for a manager. The young lady that was there stated she was a manager. I explained to her my experience so far and let her know that "I am not trying to be rude or difficult but...." she finished my sentence for me and said, "but you're spending your money." I said that is exactly right. She apologized, offered a discount on our food and regular...

Part 2: she would check on our food. She was super polite! I took my son to the bathroom so we could wash our hands and when I arrived back to our table, my friend stated that our "waiter" came back and said, "tell boss lady yall food coming" When he passed by again, he stopped and said he would give us 10% off our food. I told him no he could keep it because I spoke to the manager. His response was "oh you one of them." I said "yes I am." He said, "well I'm one of them too." Now in that moment I thought he was implying that I was the type to ask for a manager and that is very true. I am a Human Resources Professional, so I absolutely will have dialogue when things are not being handled properly. I found out later what he meant by that statement. We received more pieces of our food about 15 minutes later from other waitresses. Several items were missing however, we started eating what we had. My friend stopped “our waiter” to let him know we were missing things, and he said, “I don’t know I gave this table up.” I asked him what his name was, and he said, “I don’t know” and walked off from our table. We were severely confused! No one told us anything. He did not do a proper pass off to another waiter/waitress. No one introduced themselves to us to let us know they would be taking care of us moving forward. Literally nothing. Everything was just baffling to say the least. Another waiter came over and asked if we were ok. Very young sweet guy. Lighter skinned with glasses. He said it was his first day. I told him we were missing my child’s kids’ meal and some other items. He asked what it was and when I told him he said, “this is it right here.” It had the incorrect piece of chicken on it, so he took it back to swap it out. He then saw our “ex waiter” and gave it to him to bring to us. Our “ex waiter” asked where the plate goes, and the new waiter pointed to our table. The ex-waiter literally rolled his eyes as if he didn’t want to bring my child’s food over. I am watching the entire interaction and at this point I am livid, but I hold my composure. He brings the food over and asks whose food it is. I honestly just look at him. I couldn’t wrap my head around the service I was receiving from my own people. It was disgusting behavior. I finally say, “put my baby food down.” He says, “oh can I? Can I put your baby food down?” This is where things took a turn for the worst. I told him if he did not want to work today, he should have called off and that customer service was not his strong suit. Before I knew it, we were arguing in the middle of the restaurant. It was so embarrassing because not only was I out of character inside of a restaurant but also in front of my 2-year-old! This man antagonized me until he couldn’t anymore. The last thing I heard him say to me was, “Don’t worry yall gone get some free food. We’ll comp yall food.” At that moment, I realized that he had stereotyped me from discussing the service with the manager. He really thought that my actions were done to receive free food? He thought that that was the plot? Not the extended wait time, not the having to ask for our drinks, not the lack of introductions or proper pass-offs, not the arrogance and rudeness? He really assumed that I drove all the way to Nashville to act as a donkey just to get a free meal? Not to mention, who was he to make these calls of comping almost a $200 order? I could get on my soap box on how black businesses do not thrive like our white counterparts because of our lack discipline, but I will leave that for another day. I feel that the assumption was that since I came in on Easter Sunday, dressed down, and spoke up about the service I must was a vile, disgraceful black woman looking for a problem and a free meal. Wrong female on every and any day. That honestly sent me over the edge to the point I didn’t want anything else from the establishment. My son didn’t get to eat his food, we didn’t even get all of our food, and no we did not pay. No one came over, no one tried to de-escalate the situation between me and...

When we arrived we were greeted with a warm welcome by the hostess who seated us. We sat there for a good 15 minutes before the server came to give us water, silverware, and napkins. We were talking amongst ourselves at the table, when the server who was a black male with the dreads approached our table and placed waters, He appeared perturbed while we were talking amongst ourselves and I acknowledged him and said hello, how are you, thank you so much for bring us waters. He did not respond and said your server will be with you shortly. I am unsure what occurred, but after an additional 30-40 minutes we sat at the table waiting for someone to take our drinks and food orders, until one of the persons at our table went to let someone know, we had been waiting for an extended period of time to be served. She went to the ladies sitting at the side of the bar and told them that we had not been served, then Rachel came to our table and asked, "how may I help you?" And we let her know we were waiting to be served and then Rachel asked, "who was your server?" We then responded, that's what we were waiting for. Rachel then said, "ok, what can I get for you?" But she did not appear friendly and we were not sure why when the young lady sat us to be serviced. Also, the young lady running the food to our table, also appeared to have an attitude and was not friendly or smiling and again this was our first time at this establishment from Georgia, it was not a good experience and we were not sure what the issue was and the customer service was not good. We received our drinks so late after our food and we still was not sure what took so long because noone ever came and said anything. The Manager passed our table never acknowledged us as guests but I watched him go to several tables and ask how everything was. This was quite disappointing and awkward for a establishment such as this. We were there to order food and have a good time. We will not be back because we were treated poorly and unsure why. I recall, after the hostess seated us at our table, she then stated, that she knew who my niece was and then thereafter disappeared from the hostess stand for more than 20 minutes, thereafter, is when we noticed a shift and we were being mistreated. I would welcome a call from the Owner to discuss further. We paid our bill and tipped Rachel even though she...