Seasons 52 — Restaurant in Norwood

Went to dinner at Seasons 52 tonight with my spouse. We live around the corner. We are not fond of chains, but figured we would give it a go. Background: I have been in the restaurant/hospitality/travel+tourism industry for over 10 years. Not once was eye contact made from the hostess or the server. I understand they may be shy, but that is not what I believe to be the reason. The experience: We had an 8:00PM reservation. In our note(via Open Table) we had in the notes: "Happy couple, celebrating life" -- We had a great weekend ahead, and figured we would kick our Friday night off with Seasons 52. Upon arrival, promptly at 8:00pm, we we are seated at a 4-top table, smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. Not only does the uninviting hostess seat us by rushing manner, she doesn't remove the excess table settings(very poor attention to detail). Due to my spouse being very cold, due to health reasons, we kindly ask our server to transition us to an empty booth we spot in the corner(had a checkbook down at the time). Our server scoffs(yes, sigh and eye roll combined) and says the hostess claims it is impossible due to her having to reset her "system"... Hah! As a restaurant veteran that talk goes right through me, and my intuitive spouse knows this. As soon as we see the manager, without me saying anything, my spouse goes to kindly speak to him. Within 1 minute we are moved to said booth. //// All goes well for the rest of the evening except our second server visited our table seldomly, never told us her name, never smiled or spoke up, never asked us if we have dined with them before, never asked if we had any questions, and so on. Basically acted like we were in her way, and couldn't be bothered. Yup.. She also took her time(we are talking 50 minutes went by before we got our entrees, and this was NOT due to kitchen. We never got appetizers- they were out of the tuna we wanted -- This was due to her not taking our order until about 15-20 minutes went by after we got moved to her section...). I do get, from my own personal experience, that these team members(especially the younger ones, close in age) like to team-up when they feel hurt no one wants to sit in their section(for NON-personal reasons), but I think they took it a little toooooo personally that we wanted to change our table. I have been the server with a not-so-desired section myself, and it is something you work up from, and learn from. It has nothing to do with the server as an individual, and I hope this young lady can keep her head held high, and not resort to scoffing/passive-aggressive behavior when displeased with a guest/fellow human. ~ As someone who has been sat many a "bad section", I have had to deal with it as well. It is of upmost importance to not take your frustration out on the guest, and teammates should also not hold it against a guest. I couldn't believe what I was clearly seeing(from a previous manager's perspective...). ///

Positive: The filet mignons were tasty. The medium came out medium well, and the medium well came out well-well done, however. The glasses of wine were served at a good time. The desserts were delicious. The dessert presentation was the only time I witnessed our server show any life or hospitality, and that is because I looked her right in eyes and asked her to describe which were her favorites. She immediately engaged. I wish we had that same engagement an hour prior, but oh well. We still tipped her well. The turtle cheesecake is probably the best dessert 👍

So yeah. That is my very honest experience.

The front of house is CRUCIAL. A sorry attitude will not carry well by anyone slightly experienced and/or intuitive to human behavior.

We never made it a point to show unhappiness, but as a veteran in the industry, it was hard not to notice the immature pettiness directed towards us.

Thank you 3 stars for the, overall, tasty food + wine selection! Also, it was quite beautfully decorated. Great ambiance. Very...

Our Rating 12/30

The Place: When you first walk into Seasons 52, it is indeed a very gorgeous place and we were expecting so much. The hostess was very polite and seated us very quickly. When we first sat down, we noticed that one of our chairs was falling apart in the back. The sides were becoming disconnected and if sat in the wrong way, it could've potentially broke the chair and injured the person sitting in it. Overall for the place, it was very pretty and looked very clean which is important during this time.

The Service: The service started off very strong and then...it started to crash. We were some of the very few people in the restaurant so we thought we were going to get some undivided attention and be taken care of but that was not the case. At first, he was really helpful with the menu options and the drink refills but as time went forward, there were times all 3 of us sat without drinks and there were times we didn't even know where our server went.

The Food: The food came out and looked very appetizing but when you took the first bite, your expression changed from happy to dissapointed in a matter of seconds. For me, I received the filet mignon with the Mac and cheese and Mashed potatoes. The mac and cheese was very cold and all the cheese was at the very bottom of the bowl, there were multiple noodles that didn't even have cheese on them. Then, the mashed potatoes were placed directly under my steak and in the food industry, there should never EVER be a time, where mashed potatoes should be placed under a signature cut of meat like a filet mignon. Every time you took a bite of steak, all you could taste was the mashed potatoes that it was drowning in. The steak itself didn't have one pinch of seasoning on it which is very ironic considering the name of the place and was by far the worst restaurant level steak I've ever had the displeasure of eating.

The Dessert: We didn't receive a dessert and actually refused to have a dessert when our server asked. but after our server ghosted us for a while and we finished our meal completely (mostly without drinks) he came back to the table with this bizarre looking dessert sampler where there was these little cups with different flavors of something (I couldn't even tell you what it is) and he said "Since this is your first time here, I just wanted to show you this dessert in case you ever wanted to try it" Then we sat in an awkward silence and he took the dessert sampler away looking dissapointed that we didn't order one. After the experience with the food tasting the way it did, there was going to be no way on earth that we would spend another dollar in the place and to try to force a dessert onto us like that was very unprofessional in our opinion.

Overall: Highly disappointing and it's such a shame because when we scouted the place, we were all very excited to try it and heard nothing but good things. Let me be the first to tell you that this place is not worth the money and we will never take a step back inside for the rest of our...

Our first experience with this place- not good. We made a reservation here because it has outdoor seating during covid and the google reviews were an avg 4.4 stars. I took my daughter there for her Bday, and the host customer service was no good. They seemed more concerned with rules and stipulations than common sense. We wanted outdoor seating and they told me they had no tables. I looked out there and saw at least 5 tables open. They also told me we couldn't put 2- four person tables together for my party of 6 because of covid. Um- hello! We came TOGETHER! Where did common sense go? You're going to socially distance a family who came together? Come on now! Do you want business or not? Surely the government isn't going to walk in at 7 at night and ding the restaurant for not separating our family who came together. Eventually we were seated at 2 tables which were pretty far apart (they had been sitting open the whole time) about 45 minutes after arrival.

We were going to leave because they didn't seem to want us there, and they had a weird vibe, but Alex (our server) saved the night. Once he came, he obliged us. He understood and had some actual common sense! He provided us such great service throughout the night, was very polite and down to earth, and stayed on top of things for us. He's definitely manager material.

Now, as for the food, most of it was quite bland. The hummus tasted like chemicals. Lobster tails were dry and burnt. The filet mignon, was also quite bland. Tender, but bland. They were also not cooked well enough- not for well-done or medium well (blood was coming out). Scallops and risotto weren't awful, but they were nothing to come back for- no flavor. Stuffed mushrooms were good, the desert was good, and the strawberry salad was delightful. Things that were just ok were the breaded corn, corn flatbread, and avocado toast, but again- nothing to come back for. They did redo my daughter's lobster tail, but I made that request because it was her B-day and I wanted her to at least get to enjoy her meal.

Bill came to almost $400. You'd think you'd get a pretty delicious meal for that. It's like they put all of their money into the beautiful look of the restaurant, and landscaping, but little investment into the chefs or food prep.

We didn't complain and we just ate it because we didn't want a bunch of back and forth between us and restaurant staff/mgt, especially after what we had went through when we first got there, and it was important that my daughter's 21st birthday to go smoothly, but I don't see us going back again.

This would get a 1 star, but because of Alex's great service and the couple of food items that were decent, it...