Bar Siena — Restaurant in Niles Township

TLDR: Bar Siena took zero accountability for poor customer service and credit card fraud. If you care about the quality of service for the money you spend, do not host an event here. You are better off at EJ's, Hampton Social, or Maggiano's right next door.

We hosted a Welcome Drinks event the night before our wedding at Bar Siena. We signed a contract for a "cash" bar, where individuals could order food and drink on their own tab. All tabs contributed to a food & beverage minimum. Pretty standard welcome drinks and contract in our opinion, and we were very excited because Bar Siena continued to state that they offered higher quality space and service than their local counterparts.

Here's what went wrong: A sign and easel were dropped off to Bar Siena staff, and then never placed out. Emails confirmed that these items would be displayed, and as unnecessary as those things might seem, we spent time and money on them and hoped they would help the nearly 100% of guests who came from out of town find Bar Siena since it’s located in a large shopping mall.

The contract-stated event time was 8pm, but the manager misinformed guests that the space wasn't available until 9pm. This miscommunication by Bar Siena resulted in guests leaving the premise, and others delaying their arrival until 9pm. Those individuals were unable to contribute to the minimum F&B total during that period.

We were told by the manager that we were approximately $400-$500 below the F&B minimum at 10:30pm and there were still "12 tabs open", so we would "reach the minimum no problem". I also brought up all of the issues encountered, and asked if we could consider our tab paid in full. I was told yes, and left Bar Siena thinking we would owe nothing more than administrative fee. Imagine our surprise when we saw a $1200 charge from Bar Siena. While we understand that Bar Siena made MANY mistakes that evening, the resulting charge was quite different than what was anticipated and leaves us questioning how the manager could have been so far off about the totals…

Receipts provided by Bar Siena after the event also showed that their bartenders charged approximately $100 worth of random drinks that neither me or my husband consumed – we didn’t even open a tab that evening. Their bartenders failed to accurately charge guests for those drinks, so at the end of the night they decided to charge our card on file. When I worked in the industry, whatever we messed up we paid for out of our tips. Guess Bar Siena has a different policy and less integrity.

Bar Siena was not authorized to charge my card for those drinks per the contract, and when confronted about this via email the manager stated “I'm sorry for how the evening panned out. With the cash bar it wasn't the easiest to track in relation to the food and beverage minimum” essentially blaming staff incompetence for fraudulent charges. We were offered an event contract for a cash bar, so we expected Bar Siena to provide that service.

On top of those issues, bartenders were dishonest with guests about gratuity that had already been added to individual checks, service was disappointing (we had servers and bartenders dedicated to our event), and the manager for the evening allowed me to leave the premise thinking that we did not owe any more money because the minimum was close to being reached and to reconcile all of the mistakes made by Bar Siena.

Bar Siena has stopped responding to my emails, and has done very little to reconcile any of...

Update: I went again by myself for a Friday lunch. Had the kale salad and it was delicious. However there’s so little quinoa as to make it almost not there. I wanted something vegetarian but didn’t know what to get as a side to get some starch other than fries which I wasn’t in the mood for. So I ordered the tiramisu as a splurge dessert. It’s beautiful. But way larger than any tiramisu serving I’ve seen. And almost all cream. Very little of the lady fingers and very little coffee flavor. The server said it’s her favorite. I could see people loving this but since cream doesn’t always agree with me and I love coffee, I was hoping for a more typical ratio. It did come with a chocolate biscotti on the side which was not too sweet and I loved that.

Went for the first time today for brunch with my husband, 14 year old niece, and 80 year mother. We were all impressed with our food: margherita pizza, Classico (cheesy scrambled eggs with toast and crispy potatoes), blueberry lemon pancakes, and kale salad with salmon. We were worried it would be too chic for our tastes and while the ambience was definitely very pretty, the food was ample in quantity and normal flavors, but perfectly done. My niece is a bit picky about pizza and she loved it, eating almost the whole thing by herself. Pancakes were not the fluffy kind like from biscuit box, but like my grandma used to make except better. Thin, moist, lightly crisped and flavorful. Our server was excellent. It’s often difficult for servers to understand my elderly mom’s needs but the host and server were perfect. The music had been a bit loud for mom in the main area so they moved us to a quieter area with no issues. The server was quite friendly, and came at the right intervals, checking on us, accommodating our strange preferences for ice-free water, etc. We can’t...

Honestly, a pretty bad experience. We had a 4 o’clock reservation, but we weren’t seated until 4:40… It was Mother’s Day, so the wait is understandable. But the attitude of the girl at the hostess stand was not. We were initially told it would be 15 minutes and when we came back in 20 to check, she was extremely rude. While we were waiting for our table a staff member (Older man with a hearing aid) Was busing tables and dumped some of the water in the plants we were standing near. The water splash on us and I reacted by saying “hey, careful” He literally looked at me dead in the eye, and splashed more water at me… I didn’t say anything while at the restaurant because I didn’t want to ruin our holiday. Once seated, I asked for the dog menu (This restaurant being dog friendly was literally why we chose it.. We have a new puppy in the family that can’t be left alone yet) and the server was kind of rude about it. Told us that he didn’t think the kitchen would honor the Dog menu since It’s a holiday… he did eventually bring the menu, but honestly made me feel bad about even asking for it… service was super slow and food was brought out in a weird manner. He told us the dogs food would come out with the Appetizers, but it didn’t.. it came about 10 minutes after.. and was WAY too hot. So we had a dog going crazy wanting food she couldn’t have.. Appetizer came before we got our drinks.. And my daughters food came out Cold… Not not hot, but actually cold. They did replace it very quickly, which I appreciated. Had to ask for refills after cup being empty for a while.. Just an all-around poor experience. I get that holidays are busy, but the restaurant needs to understand that it’s a day that people are out celebrating… Their demeanor is part of what can make this day extra special for people.. and that didn’t...