Black Forest Brooklyn - Fort Greene — Restaurant in New York

I don’t normally do this - I even often leave places positive reviews - but a person in the comments suggested they didnt receive a response to their email from restaurant regarding their poor experience so here I go.... We got there at about 2pm after the brunch rush and were seated right away. The woman who sat us offered to take our drink order which was just just a fresh squeezed orange juice for $6. Our waiter came over and took the rest of our order which included a beer. When the beer came out, there was no orange juice, no biggie, we of course said something and a few mins later the oj showed up. It had black flakes in the glass, again no biggie but the oj was definitely not fresh squeezed and clearly Tropicana. When we asked the waiter he seemed surprised and walked away to confer with the bar tender across the room (I saw them pointing at us) and came back indicating they did not have fresh oj available. He took the glass with him. About 20 mins later our food arrived, my burger was cold on one side and warm on the other, the melted cheese had rehardened and the fries were cold. My friend’s eggs were cold and his order was lacking a side of sausage. We asked about the sausage, and the waited seemed confused and went to get it. I saw him putting the order in behind the bar. The sausage eventually came out, he ate half of one of the three sausages. We brought up the lackluster food with the woman who sat us who brought it back to the kitchen. In the mean time, we watched our waiter pour a beer straight into a glass, not down the side, and act surprised when 6 inches of head appeared - lol. She came back over and offered a round of drinks which I hesitantly began to accept when she cut me off and suggested a pretzel saying our food was being “reheated... I mean remade.” Our pretzel showed up when the food came came - which was the only good thing we had. The burger still had possibly the same rehardened cheese and was very well done - ie just reheated. The eggs were fine but the salad had rotting leaves, there were now only two sausages, which were raw in the middle, and the potatoes were not cooked - like they were hard and not able to be cut with the side of a fork. The breakfast order also didn’t have the bread and preserves that were indicated on the menu. When we brought this up with another waiter he seemed surprised, like this wasnt on the menu. This were eventually brought out. When the check came it still had the oj on it - ha! This was removed along with my beer. It was just a mess, a surprising mess as I have enjoyed meals there in the past. The prices are high for brunch, our bill was set to be near $50. Maybe we ordered wrong? Like maybe we should have just gotten German food but whatever, this was our bad experience....

I've been to Black Forest for lunch many times. The service here is hit or miss but mostly it's okay. I felt the need to write a review today because the service today was exceptionally bad.

We sat outside today which was nice. The waiter came over and seemed nice enough. We ordered from the lunch menu and then I tried to order their happy hour beer. Two of the three were unavailable- it's a Biergarten- how do you run out of beer? Anyway, I asked the waiter if we could substitute a beer since they didn't have two of the three. He said no. That didn't make sense to me so I asked to speak with a manager. He told me there was none. No manager? I asked him if there was anyone we could speak to- again, he said no. Wow. I'd never been to a place with no management that a customer could speak to when there was an issue.

On to the food- we waited forever for the food to come out. I had to go in to the restaurant to check on it because, it's lunchtime on a weekday- we had to get back to the office. When it finally came out... it was cold. Whyyyyyy? We waited so long... but we didn't have time to wait for new food... so, it was what it was.

While eating this cold food- I asked the waitress if there was a manager- she replied, "sure, I'll go get him." Wait, what?... why was I told that there was no manager?!! I. WAS. LIVID.

It's one thing not to be able to offer your customers alternatives when you don't have something in stock. It's a completely different animal when you tell your customers that there is no manager you can speak to when there is. I'm not sure what that waiter's deal is- maybe he's new. Doesn't matter. I would rather have someone tell me they aren't sure and go ask- then straight up tell me no, and the guy is right inside.

I like this place (normally) for their food- but if I was a first time customer today, I'd never go back. Even now, it will probably be a while before I even think about going back there because I'm so upset that I feel like the waiter lied to me. One star for you Black Forest- because Google says I can't...

I've been going to Black Forest for over 5 years, and last weekend I had a truly unacceptable experience. Due to the pandemic, they have a digital ordering service, which is mildly confusing but we figured it out. We ordered tons of food and drinks, and ordered a round of shots for the table.

Our food arrived, and most of our drinks came. The round of shots were missing, and we gave some time for them to arrive. Eventually one of the bartenders brought just two shots out of the five we ordered. He placed the shots on the table, and explained something about "paying it forward". With the volume of the music and people in the bar, we had a hard time hearing him, so didn't quite understand what he said. We figured the remaining shots would come out at some point.

Another 15 minutes passes, and the shots were nowhere to be found. As the bartender who had delivered our first two shots passed our table, we politely asked if it would be possible to get the missing three shots.

In what I can only describe as the rudest and most condescending tone he said to us " Well if you understand the english language, the menu said this was a pay it forward promotion". We were shocked, and in an appropriately defensive response, we expressed that the menu (Which stated that proceeds from the sales of the shots would be going to supporting local restaurant workers) , did not correlate to us not receiving shots that we were paying for.

This bartender was hostile and aggressive. I understand how hard working a service industry job is. We were nothing but kind and respectful to him, and his attitude and energy towards us was unnerving and ruined the rest of our dinner. He ended up bringing the remaining shots, and slammed them pretty hastily on the table. It was important for him to make us feel like we were in the wrong....even though we weren't.

We got out of there as quickly as possible. This bartender was clearly releasing his toxic anger out on a table of femme people. Would not recommend...