Nora Lees — Restaurant in New Castle

If I could rate this no stars I would. Me and my family had a terrible experience here. Tonight February 25th we had a reservation for 6 people at 5pm. They took us at 5, we ordered appetizers which was fine. They took forever to bring out our entrees. The catfishes we ordered, we did not like. They were fried with no season and very oily. We advise them we would like to order something else. After we place our order, again they took a very long time to bring out our new orders which actually never came out. It’s going on 7:30 at this point to 8pm. Which means we been here for about 3 hours now. They kept saying it would be out in a sec, but never came. We decided we didn’t want to wait any longer and to just cancel the new order and we will just pay for what we did eat. They brought the bill out and the bill had the new order of food on there. We advised we will not be paying for our new food since we didn’t receive and did not want anymore since it took so long. The manager (general manager) came out with a nasty attitude and said we already made the food you can either sit here and eat it or take it to go but you have to pay for it. We advised it took very long and we are willing to pay for what we did eat but not food we did not receive. We told her it took way too long and people after us was getting their food before us. Manager stated we can’t just bump you up to the top of the list because you don’t like the food. She threatens to call the cops on us, we advise we will call the cops too. She stated the cops are going to be on her side anyway which was terrible to say. The cops get here we told the cops we are willing to pay for what we ate but not what we did not receive. Both the owner and managers still had nasty attitudes saying they are busy and short staffed. The cops agreed that the customers should not have to pay for something they did not get. She snatched the receipt out of the cops hand and said forget it just don’t come back. This was truly unacceptable and a big mistake on their part. We are African American and I truly feel there was some racism in this. We have never been handled this way before and been at this restaurant before and never had an issue with the food or service. The managers name was Whitney. If they would have just told us from the jump they were super busy or even apologized then this could have ended differently. Even the cops appreciated the fact we were willing to pay for what we did at least get instead of walking out. But because of their poor service, they will no longer have our business and I will be letting everyone know. Even the waitress who we actually didn’t have an issue with, said this manager is always like this! As customers we can not just accept any type of service especially if we are paying. Absolutely...

We just left there tonight and I have to say cajun? I spent a year in Louisiana with many trips to New Orleans, I learned to cook true Cajun from my mother in law. My husband spend 35 yrs of his life in Louisiana so if you truly know food from Louisiana whether its cajun or creole this is neither of them. We started with crawfish bisque, not a single crawfish to be found not 1, the base was thick and has a very vinegary taste, it was interesting to say the least. My husband had the gumbo once again gumbo is made with a roux this was not at all it was red with tomato base and way to thick, again it had a very vinegar taste. Move on to lunch/dinner I got the fried cat fish over chicken jambalaya. The cat fish was very good but if your from Louisiana you know the batter is made with corn meal and seasoning nothing else this had a good batter but was not Cajun. The jambalaya was so vinegary and tomatoed if that is even a word. Definitely not any type of jambalaya I ever tasted. If you have never had food from Louisiana you may like it for us it was not good. My husband got the crawfish nachos. The oil in the bottom of the plate was horrible. My husband did not even eat 1/4 of his and he normally can eat everything and I do mean everything. We both had more then 3/4 of our plate left and did not take it home with us. He did order the chocolate peppermint cake. Save the money that cake was super dry, the saving grace was the home made whipped cream. Unfortunately as excited as my husband was to maybe find a true Cajun restaurant went down in flames. He said never again and I have to agree with him it just was not good. Now the service was wonderful our waitress was as all of the staff was pleasant and very efficient. Honestly if you have never had jambalaya or gumbo you may enjoy it. Being as I know what its supposed to taste like and do cook it especially during the fall and winter this was no where near what it should taste like. My suggestion is try make roux from scratch and actually spend the time to make it a...

Have been here before and the food is generally good, although $15 for 3 scollops is too much. I went today at 3:35 pm and waited for 10 minutes for the hostess to get off the phone and seat us. 2 waitresses said she would be with us in a minute, which didn’t happen. As soon as she got off the phone, she said, I will be right with you as she saw us the entire time she was talking on the phone, but left to go to the bartender for a bit, before we finally got seated. After another 5 minutes of waiting at the table, I asked the hostess if we could see a waitress, as we had been ready to order for several minutes at that point. FYI the tables next to us were waiting too. She said that she would send our waitress right over. 5 minutes later, still no waitress, as I watched her chat it up with 4 other waitresses standing around. We decided to go to one of my favorites down the street instead, Jessop’s Tavern, where we got seated quickly, and served a great meal with outstanding service!

I told the hostess at Nora Lees that I would be letting her manager know how bad the service was there and that I was leaving (after waiting another 3 minutes for her to return to her station). She said, “oh, someone was just about to come over!” I said, after 20+ minutes of waiting to be seated and still no waitress, when there was 4 of them standing around, that I would go where they actually appreciated our business. Jessop’s got $120 that they lost out on and unlikely any repeat business in the future. Service was slow in the past, but not this bad and this blatant!

PS. I just got off the phone with the manager, Jess, and she was glad I called and agreed it should have never happened, but offered nothing at all for us to come back and try again. In my business, I would have said to come in and see me and we would make it up to us! Service and quality are two major factors in repeat business, clearly, they need some training.

If you have all day and want to overspend on...