The District GastroBar — Restaurant in Orlando

First, I'll say the food was fantastic, and that is why I'm giving 2 stars. But this review just goes downhill after that. I made a reservation online for mine and my wife's anniversary and found that "the District Gastrobar has a business casual dress code and I can be denied a table in the dining room if I or any member of my party does not arrive in proper attire." Which is fine. However, we walked 30 minutes to the restaurant from our hotel in not-exactly-comfortable clothing to be greeted by a host wearing shorts and t-shirt and surrounded by guests wearing the same. Still, not that bad. But, then we were served by a waitress (whom the bartender told me was named Betta) who would have been a better fit as a bartender at a dive bar. Her demeanor came off like someone who was drunk or on pills and she was slovenly, impatient and rude. When she came to take our order, I told her I was having a hard time deciding between two menu items, however she didn't let me finish my sentence and interrupted me after the word "deciding" to say: "Really? You've taken a lot of time!" before I could complete my statement and ask her which of the two menu items she would suggest. After we got the meal, she didn't check on us until our food was over 1/2 finished, and then she acted annoyed that I asked for a side of mayonnaise. She brought the check to us before we were done with the meal and I had to tell her that I was probably going to get dessert. She was, again, annoyed as she walked away. After that, I just wanted to get out of there, so I told her, politely, that I had decided against dessert and could we please get the check. When she pulled out the credit card reader, I was confused that it asked if I wanted to apply a "+3%, +7% or +10% tip," so I asked her why it wasn't the standard 18%, 20% and 22% tip? She said that we had already been charged an automatic 20% tip. I declined to give her an extra tip on top of 20% and she reacted by angrily mumbling something and grabbing the card reader out of my hands before stalking away from the table. Then, as we were headed towards the door, Betta sarcastically yelled across the length of the entire restaurant, "You two have a GREAT night." When I walked back in to the restaurant to use the restroom, I asked the bartender our servers name. I have no problem with giving a server a great tip for even mediocre service, but apparently extracting 20% from every guest automatically gives some servers the excuse to treat their guests like crap. I'm happy that the food was so good, because, otherwise, that experience with the server would have ruined our...

This review is based on our experience with the little short bartender with lots of tattoos who seemed to have an attitude in general. He went from ignoring us to just being nasty with absolutely no sense of customer service and definitely not customer retention. He needs to be pulled from customer interactions and retrained.

Three of us ate meals that tasted good and Amanda's (our waitress from earlier) service was good. The bartender did mess up one drink but Amanda replaced it without being asked. When the second drink was made with soda instead of tonic, we didn't even complain.

After spending close $250, we went to the basketball game at the Kia center. We enjoyed ourselves and decided to head back over to District Gastrobar after just being there 2.5 hours earlier. We sat down at the bar and we were completely ignored. It wasn't crowded at all. 5 people seated at the bar to my left and 2 people seated at the bar to my right. No one standing around and several empty tables.

The customer to my left seated right next to me knocked over an entire beer and broke the glass that it was in. Glass shattered and popped up, then beer began to run down towards me. I had to jump up and grab our things. Let's just call the bartender "Tattoo". He made no haste to help and he let the customers clean it up. I had been sitting there for several minutes and Tattoo did not acknowledge me in anyway, so I asked one of the waitresses (not Amanda) if she could help, but she had tables. My husband ended up walking around the other side of the bar to stand in front of the bartender for several minutes.

Besides for moving quite slowly and nonchalant, he refused to make any eye contact with my husband or acknowledge him in any way. As a VIP Opentable.com member since 2004, we eat out all the time. I expected the bartender to at least say he would get to us as soon as he could but nothing. A customer beside my husband said the guy could at least acknowledge you. Finally, my husband asked him if he was ever going to acknowledge him and this guy got nasty with my husband. I told him not to say anything to my husband and our friend was telling me it wasn't worth it and we should just leave.

We had such a nice night and this guy's poor service really put a damper on it. Seemed like this guy didn't even want to be there. It's a shame because the food was good and we thought we'd found a new place to visit. With Tattoo there, it is unlikely we...

This restaurant/bar is ideally located close to the Kia Center, however that's where the bonus features end! I made a reservation for party of 2, 3 days in advance of the show I was attending on July 20th. We arrived on time were offered a small round table right in front of the entrance of an already crowded small space, we ended up sitting at the bar, not super comfortable, but better then the alternative option. Service was super, super slow, though the bar staff were friendly enough. When we eventually got to order the food, it did come out pretty quick, which was a nice surprise. However we were pretty cramped with people all around us trying to get drinks from the bar, constantly. Overall, I have to say that this establishment is pretty un organized or perhaps mis-managed, it felt like the staff were winging it and hoping their efforts worked. In my opinion the menu is limited, mostly offering fried food, which are not the healthiest of offerings. The first food item we ordered was a flatbread, but after we ordered it (like 15 minutest later), we were told that on busy nights they don't use the oven, therefore flatbreads and pizza were not available - it sure would have been nice to know that, when we initially put in the order. Another very noticeable issue was the A/C, it felt extremely HOT in the restaurant, it truly felt like there was no movement of air - NOT good. When we were finally ready to leave we received the bill. I was surprised to see that they automatically added a 20% tip, which is fine, however under most circumstances I always tip 25% plus, but as they had made that decision for me, I decided to stay with their plan. I paid cash, which became another small issue as it looked like they were going to the tip jars to gather the money. When they came back to me with my change they were short $2, the look they gave almost felt like 'aw it's only $2, do you really want it' - I said I wanted they rest of my money. Eventually they found 2 $1 bills and handed it over - we left. We will never go back to this restaurant. I should have researched better options before the show, so that is on me! It was a rough experience to say the very least, though it did not diminish our...