HighBrow Wood Fired Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Northampton

2nd Update: owner put here that they wanted me to email them regarding the staff and the stolen credit card and I've never gotten a response back even though I sent a very lengthy, descriptive email regarding the whole ordeal with the stolen credit card. They do not care.

UPDATE*Aug 24th 2023 They got my grandmas credit card info! She just told me her card was compromised when they took and "lost it" for 15 minutes. There were unauthorized Amazon charges and now she's has to replace her card. I knew that card didn't end up where they found it by mistake.

I wanted to like this place I really did but the experience was honestly one of the worst. **I called in advance to get a reservation and when I got there they said all the tables inside were already reserved. My grandma is 76 and has asthma and it was humid out. I asked my grandma if we should go somewhere else at that point and she said no it's fine so we took a table outside. Our table outside had the previous persons fries in the floor with tons of fruit flys.

**When our appetizers arrived a chicken wing was dropped and splashed sauce on my my best friends arm. Our food took a long time to get. Past a half hour I think it was close to 45mins. These things I could look past.

*Unfortunately the thing I couldn't look past was our waitress LOST MY GRANDMA'S BANK CARD somehow from point A to B but not before charging the full 90+ amount for dinner. *( food was decent but not worth all the hassle)

It was a bit busy when the card was lost so anyone could have taken it and got to the point where multiple staff members and myself were looking. It was about 20 feet from our table outside to the register inside so it shouldn't have been an issue. The good news is they found it but it somehow was found behind the counter where the chefs were cooking??

To be clear there was no way into where the chefs were cooking from where the register was. It was a solid ( wooden?) wall divider at least 4ft tall and then a metal rest on top of that. The register was facing the street view outside while the chefs area was on the other side of the walkway facing the opposite direction. A waitresses back would be towards the chefs area when they rang someone out. It wasn't a set up where the register was on the table as the same side as the chefs warmer area or anything.

Conclusion: I'm still not sure how the bank card would be on the floor where the chefs were on the ground. The bank card made it fine to the register to be charged. My grandma was able to pull up her bank info right away on her phone ( she was trying to lock her card in case anyone took it) and the charge was already showing. Also past the wall divider there is also a metal prepping service table. How the card somehow got over the divider, past the metal prepping table and hit the ground and no one ( I counted 3 chefs) noticed or heard??? I don't buy it. I told my grandma to watch for any suspicious charges in case it was taken to write down her credit card info. I'll never go back and unfortunately never...

Last Saturday, I went to HighBrow with two friends. Yes, it was busy. It's a Saturday night at a restaurant. But we waited and waited for our appetizers to come out, were told by the waiter that they were on their way, and we are at about 30 minutes now. That's fine. Eventually, after about 35 minutes another waitstaff member comes with our entrees. She has no idea about the truffle fries and calamari and says, "They aren't even up yet". She asks if we want her to take back our entrees, to which we said no. Our waiter came probably about 5-10 minutes later, and apologized but also said, "You know, it's a Saturday night, it's busy". I get that things happen. But he made it seem like we were being unreasonable. Most places where you eat will offer to comp something - your appetizers or get you some drinks for free - but I feel like we were gaslit into thinking we were just being demanding. The appetizers did come. But the service left much to be desired.

The food? I wanted to love it, but all of it was so so. The gluten free pizza with broccoli rab and Italian sausage? Lots of garlic, very little salt, and one teeny piece of Italian sausage per slice. I didn't even taste it; my friend did. Don't include sausage in the description if you're going to put so little. The truffle fries had no truffle oil and the dip for the fries looked and tasted like mayo with some random spices on it, and it also had no salt on it. My friend's tofu meal, she said, was very, very sweet and missing the salt factor. She is someone who is watching her sugar intake for health reasons and was not anticipating such a sweet dish. Sweet with salty, yes, but not just sweet. The calamari was rubbery and got stuck in my teeth.

I wanted to love HighBrow. One of my friends had been there already once, had an OK but not great experience, but gave HighBrow another go because you have dedicated gluten free fryers, etc. But I think your waitstaff need more training in customer service...and the food needs a...

Dined there this past weekend, we were a party of two. First time there. Initial review of the place. We were seated at a table by the window near the front door. Extremely hot in the restaurant and lots of flies all over the place. Food was ordered and came out approximately 30-35 minutes later which is acceptable. We ordered what was indicated as roasted calamari on the menu for an appetizer. Our entrees were a pizza and chicken parmesan. App came out in a timely fashion but was fried calamari which was fine. Very small portion. Entrees took about 30 minutes after the app was served. The chicken Parm was very good and my partner indicated the pizza was very good as well. Everything OK up until this this part. About 10 minutes after receiving our entrees a server came over to the table and indicated to us that they had an incoming reservation for the table we were in and said we had about 15 minutes until that incoming party arrived. Literally One piece of pizza had been eaten at this time and about 1/4 of the chicken parm. It really caught me off guard and after I had time to process the request I walked around the restaurant and found many empty tables, which I found odd since we were asked to leave. I came back to the table and expressed my disappointment with the request to vacate and indicated that we had never had anything happen like that. The server said she was not aware of the request and then asked if we wanted dessert and I indicated that we could not because we were being asked to leave as soon as possible. My partner and I felt stressed after the incident and really felt unwelcome by this establishment with a feeling like we had to leave immediately. I was disgusted and left the restaurant to retrieve the car since it was pouring rain. Apparently the manager spoke to my partner and apologized before leaving. She kept asking if there was anything she could do. We had already paid the bill at that point and in the end they did absolutely...