Lola's — Restaurant in New Orleans

I really wanted to love this restaurant, but I have never been treated so poorly when dining out with my family. I had a reservation on April 25, 2023 at 8:30 PM. My husband and I decided to try a new local restaurant because we just found out we were expecting our first child a few days prior. I got home a little bit later than normal from my job and realized we would be showing up 5 to 10 minutes after our reservation time to the restaurant. I called and let them know. I understood that the restaurant was only open for so much longer after our allotted time, so I asked them if it would be better if I canceled and rescheduled my reservation. The woman on the phone said I was completely fine to still come in even if I showed up 5 to 10 minutes after my reservation time. We showed up exactly 5 minutes after our reservation. We walked in to a very cold greeting from the staff. They all just looked at us like we were inconveniencing them and one of them finally begrudgingly showed us to a table.We overheard two of the young ladies who are servers trash talking my husband and I. Asking each other why we would even bother showing up if we made a reservation so late at night? Mind you we weren’t showing up five minutes before closing. We showed up almost 2 hours before closing. Both my husband and I have worked in the service industry before we ended up working in our careers. so this type of behavior is completely unacceptable. No excuses.After waiting for several minutes, someone finally came over and greeted us. Again, a very cold and poor greeting.My husband and I ordered water to be easy and then we both wanted to start off with salads. My husband wanted a Caesar salad and the server told told my husband to order an easier salad to make because they didn’t want to have to take everything out to make a Caesar salad. Excuse me? How extremely unprofessional. Then got upset when I ordered paella. Asked me if I knew that it was going to take 30 to 45 minutes to cook it, and I said that I knew that. The pie was the whole reason I wanted to come to the restaurant. After you hearing the kitchen curse and slam things down very loudly after putting my order in. We genuinely felt so uncomfortable. After finally receiving our food, out of courtesy, we took a few bites of our meal and then immediately asked for a box. Disgustingly unprofessional. The food was good. I am attaching the pictures of my husband and I entrées below. Even eating the leftovers felt disgusting because we could not get over how badly we were treated. Even after all of this, we still left over a 20% tip because, again, we were both servers and understand what it is like. This was the first time in both of our lives that we actually considered not tipping at all. We will never return back and have warned other people of our experience at this place. You never know what people are going through behind closed doors. It takes absolutely nothing to show kindness to another person. After experiencing so many health problems and finally being able to conceive a child, we just wanted to have a beautiful night out together and celebrate. The night was ended with tears and disbelief at the amount of disrespect we received from complete...

Two couples had reservations for 8:30 PM and were seated promptly at that time. However, there was no acknowledgment or attention from the staff until 9:00 PM. For the first 30 minutes, no one offered water or even checked in with them. Someone approached them and asked if they had a server. At that time the appetizer order was taken. At 9:30 PM main meal order placed. By 10:30 PM—two full hours after being seated—still no main meal. They were then informed they could pay for their appetizers and cancel the rest of the meal because their food had still not been prepared. Despite this, they insisted on waiting for their meals.

By 11:00 PM, they still had not received their food. This level of service is unacceptable, and the lack of communication only compounded the frustration.

In an attempt to address the issue, I approached the restaurant and requested to speak with a manager. I was met with an unprofessional and rude response from the staff. When I pointed out that the couples had been seated at 8:30 PM and were still waiting for food at 11:00 PM, I was told that the kitchen had "run out of food." This seemed to be a blatant falsehood, as I observed the kitchen staff still preparing meals. I expressed my thoughts that the waitress had not placed their order and that no one had communicated any issues with the food. This apparently upset the staff.

To make matters worse, one of your employees approached me in a confrontational manner, seemingly threatening aggression and told me to leave the "private business". Additionally, I was approached by two other tables, who mentioned that they had arrived after my group but had already been served. It is clear to me that the service provided to my family was subpar, possibly due to a lack of attention or even disregard for their presence.

I was also told by some staff members that, because it was New Year's Eve, we "shouldn’t have come" to the restaurant. I find this level of disrespect and lack of professionalism deeply concerning.

This experience was far below the standards one would expect from any reputable establishment, and certainly not reflective of the hospitality that New Orleans is known for. I emailed them with...

Ive been to Lola's a few times and up to this point really loved the food and would always recommend it to any friends and family that lived in New Orleans or would be visiting. My last experience there as just completely washed away all of that as I will never recommend it and will wore than likely activly dissuade people from login there and recommend some where else. I completely understand that need to flip tables and get customers feed and out for new customers, but never have I been pushed out and made to feel as if I was unwanted as this last time. To have the manager come and talk to the table about another reservation as if the party is just lounging around an hour after eating. The check had not even been Brought to the table at this point and they had just literals removed the dishes from the table. From my perspective the only person holding up us finishing was the restaurant itself as we can not go in to the kitchen and grab the ticket ourselves. Then to add even more uncomfortableness to this the waitress then took another 30 plus minutes to give us the tickets with about as much attitude as you can give as well. All in all I have never felt so unwelcome at an establishment as I did at Lola's that night, and again I could some reasoning for it if we were some party just sitting around bumping our gums for ever holding onto the ticket not paying but this was not the case we literally could not leave until they physically brought us the ticket. Also I don't want this to be chalked up to one bad waitress(even though she was terrible) it was also the manager as well that was behind the terrible service. Again I will never eat there again and will recommend against eating there to any family/friends. If your reading this spend your money at one of the multiple other fantastic restaurants in New Orleans, they may not have the same fantastic scenery as Esplanade Ave. but you also won't be treating like...