Rack & Helen's Bar and Grill — Restaurant in New Haven

Goodbye Rack and Helen's. As 3 or 4 times out of the month customers we are saying goodbye due to extremely poor service and waitresses with attitudes. Is this how you treat frequent flyer customers? Sunday nights is a treat to take two of our kids that are not 21 yet so we went early. We made reservations. They were not busy at all. We were the only ones sitting on family side and the bar, I could see two tables. Our waitress took our drink order and brought those back fairly quickly. She didn't ask us if we were ready to order (which we were) she walked away and started having a conversation with a coworker at the bar area. In the meantime two more couples came in and sat down with reservations also. Our party got her attention and asked if she could take our order. Her response was I am the only one up front here I need to take their drink orders first and then I will come back to you. She came back and you could tell not pleased at all with us. She took our order. One of us did get a Mexican meal which means the entire table will get chips and salsa. She brought over the chips and salsa a few minutes later and brought one basket of mostly crushed tortilla chips and 1 bowl for salsa. We had 5 people in our party and like I said normally the entire table gets the chips and salsa. In fact, the two other tables that arrived shortly after us, did receive chips and salsa for the entire table with each having their own salsa bowl. My husband asked for additional bowls for salsa and the entire table. She said that she couldn't give us more bowls and it's not policy. Their just has been lots of incidents like this one described and so Rack & Helen's if this is how you treat loyal, frequent and good tiping customers. I wish you luck. Your food is great, beer is cold but your employee's have attitudes and we are fed up. On an average an upset customer will tell at least 10 family and friends in conversations and just bring up. The last time we were at R&H's we had a problem and asked to talk to the manager. The manager would not come out of the kitchen. Today while we were waiting today for our food, we overheard a carryout customer asking to be sure there are enough toppings on his pizza cause last time it didn't hardly have any and that he is a repeating customer. Two tables down today, the man sent back his grinder cause it hardly didn't have any meat in it. This is goodbye Rack & Helen's. Hopefully you will pull things back together and offer the friendly service that you used to.

Point is, the waitress was upset with us so she brought 1 bowl for salsa and a crushed basket of chips. Servers are allowed to be rude.

To the owner: Note the feedback is not about the chips and sauce even though that is done ALL the time. The feedback is about the poor, rude,...

Are you Norm? Is this "Cheers?" No? Well, bring a flask and expect to wait.

So, I'm on a crappy service review night tonight and Rack and Helen's was #2 on my list of "local" bad service establishments.

Yes, you can receive good, even excellent, service. However, after numerous visits over a few months it became painfully clear that good and/or excellent service has more to do with who you know/are than based on a well-trained wait staff.

For instance, my last two trips to Racks resulted in slow service/wrong order, followed by sitting at a mostly empty bar for 15 minutes before leaving (yes. walking out) without even being approached by staff.

Are you a well-known New Haven-ite?

You'll probably LOVE Rack's (as we refer to it).

Are you an out-of-towner that heard about Rack's wings and sauce tray?

If so, I wish you the best of luck. Your service may be perfect, but you may start to feel like a camera person on the set of a bar remodeling reality show. Everyone around you gets drinks while you get "served."

I'd like to give them a glowing review. Honestly, the wings are good and the sauce caddy is superb...if your waiter doesn't ask to take it while you're still eating wings (probably a popular local had just arrived). Still, you have to get service, good service, to make it worthwhile.

Bottom line: Go to Rack's if you're a winning New Haven HS football coach. Otherwise, Rack and Helen's is a good carry-out pizza/sausage roll joint where you may (if you're Norm) be able to have a beer while you wait.

Three stars is the result of a +1 for the...

Great food, too casual of an atmosphere.

The food there is good and the service otherwise was alright as the waitress kept our drinks filled, but on the weekends it seems more roadhouse bar that happens to serve good food than a restaurant that has entertainment, which some people like. Guess it depends on what you are looking for as to whether you want to go earlier and during the week or later at night and on the weekends.

The atmosphere is also a little too casual; the waitress sat down at our table to take our order. When I worked in the industry, that would have been a cardinal sin. Worse yet, the guitar player that was setting up next to us plopped his dirty case on our table to set up his microphone without asking if it was or ok, then set his water on the table. My guest asked if he wanted a bite of his sandwich too and he seemed oblivious. At least his band mate was not; he told him he needed to move his water off the table. Again, without a word or apology, he picked up his water and put it on the floor. Very rude. Perhaps a small table should be set aside and reserved for the band for these purposes and they should address that with the staff, but not fair to make their problem ours and interrupt a...