Christian James Restaurant — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

This was the most hilariously embarrassingly terrible experience I’ve ever had at a restaurant. That includes Wendy’s. I’ll try to use bullets to sum it up as efficiently as possible: Hostess couldn’t find our reservation (despite us both having email confirmations). Said she could squeeze us in anyway like it was doing us a big favor. Meanwhile the place was 1/5th full (on New Year’s Eve) and we HAD RESERVATIONS. After being seated, no one came to the table for 15-20 min. Eventually the hostess brought us waters. Another 15 min, hostess comes back and asks us if a server has been over yet. Nope. So she takes our drink order. (Again this place is NOT busy, like at all) Fire alarm goes off telling everyone to evacuate the building, which no one did and no one explained what was happening. Seemed like a regular occurrence. She brings our drinks at which point we’re like okay let’s just order food while we have you here. Unknown person brings our food. It’s fine? Really underwhelming but I’m really not that picky. A full hour passes. We have yet to meet our server, if such person exists. Our drinks are empty, no one asked how the food was or if we needed anything or even looked our direction. A kitchen employee comes to take our plates away (nice guy, but felt like he was just taking the plates to clean up and clock out- don’t blame him, I couldn’t wait to leave either). I asked him for a box which he brought. Another 40 minutes go by with empty drinks, empty plates, we have our COATS on at this point. A server or manager of some kind keeps visiting the table next to us and absolutely refuses to even look our direction. We could’ve said excuse me to ask for a check, but at this point it was hilarious. We hear a server say “okay I’m clocking out” lmao this was the first time I even saw her. Meanwhile the hostess is across the room rolling silverware. We assume at this point we are invisible and are just free to go. Hostess comes back over and says “how did everything turn out guys” 😂😂😂😂 we ordered the food almost 2 hours ago and this is the first time anyone asked haha. We’re very ready to get out of here. She brings the check and says she gave us a discount for “our patience” but we didn’t get a chance to look at the check bc she waited at the table for us to get our credit cards out and then just took the cards and the check back. At quick glance I saw it was $110 so whatever discount she gave was a joke. I’ve never not left a tip in my life and have excessive patience for industry workers, but I honestly didn’t know who the tip would go to?? I left $5 which I’m hoping goes to the guy who got me the box.

We managed to have a nice time bc the place was practically empty and we just enjoyed eachother’s company and being left alone haha but dear god that...

Kicked off Pittsburgh restaurant week lastnight and chose Christian James at the joinery , curio Hotel by Hilton in Downtown Pittsburgh. My two friends had beat me there for our 7:30 pm reservation and I saw they hadn’t been greeted or given water yet. I was about 15 min late to our reservation. Another 15 mins go by without being seen or waited on. (Mind you I used to work in the food industry so I’m usually very forgiving and patient when it comes to dining out) Finally the manager walked over and asked if we had been seen yet, we told him no. He frantically grabs our waitress in the middle of her conversing with another table telling her to wait on us (which I thought was pretty rude and unnecessary. He could have had this conversation with her in private) this set the mood for the rest of our night and we should have seen what was coming our way after this. She was embarrassed and very apologetic the whole time she was waiting on us. We were reassuring her the whole time that we all used to work in food and to pay it no mind. The manger came over with 3 free glasses of Prosecco to apologize for the wait. My friend and myself ordered from the pittsburgh restaurant week menu and her husband ordered off the regular menu. First it took a very long time for our drinks to arrive . Finally our appetizers came and they were VERY good. Another 30-35 min go by and my friend and I were served(by the manager) our main course. We sat there for a bit because our third friend still hadn’t received his food. Another 15 min go by we finally are able to grab our waitress and tell her that our friend hasn’t received his food and there were parts of my friend and i’s dinner that were missing from our plate (fried plantains). Our waitress then tells us they had forgotten to make my friends food and it would be out in just a couple more minutes. My friend and I decide to dig into our main course and AGAIN food was excellent . I got lamb and it was cooked and seasoned to perfection. Our plaintains arrive and UNFORTUNATELY my friends plaintains just were not edible. My third friend STILL has not received his food . We decided to tell the waitress that he would rather just not eat anymore and to tell the kitchen to not bother making it . They boxed up his dinner and comped his whole dinner. The manager again came over and gave us another free round of Prosecco. We were seeing other people complain left and right. A table next to us actually got up and left because of how fustrated they were. We were there for a total of almost 3 hrs …..

All in all food was very good. Some mistakes were made. In the end this restaurant needs more structure and to keep the chaos behind closed doors . I would give it a 1.5 out of 5 stars. I hope this restaurant can get it together because they do have a lot...

food was okay, restaurant atmosphere was pretty. we showed up for our 7pm reservation at 6:55 and the host made a weird comment about us being early which i found odd, and started the whole weird experience. Our server seemed new and she was definitely trying but service was not good. We thought food was extremely overpriced for what it was. The strip steak mentions no rosemary, and was served literally cooked in a rosemary bush. After they brought it out, someone from the kitchen ran to the table with a chunk of butter and said "we forgot the butter on the steak" and used a torch to melt butter on my steak. My steak was overcooked but I refrained from saying anything because I was hungry and didn't want to wait again. The scallops and risotto was $58 and came with only 3 scallops. it was a bowl of risotto essentially. the appetizers were okay and reasonably priced. I ordered a bottle of pinot grigio, which was $34 and a brand I had never heard of. the server brought it out after 25 minutes and nervously said something about it being a "young wine, vintage 94" and i was like .... okay, ive never heard of 30 year old pinot grigio. According to a google search it was a $9 bottle at max. and a 2020 vintage. We also ordered the prosecco bottle that was on the menu, listed at $32, but we were charged $51 for it. We let it go thinking they gave us a more expensive bottle so we were okay paying for it. The brand was Cielo, also never heard of. Upon checking it today, we were charged $51 for the $32 Cielo prosecco on the menu that is only $11 at the liquor store. Almost a 500% upcharge. We also 'splurged' and got the s’mores tart which I was really excited for. The tart itself was cold/room temp and the marshmallow fluff was torched at the table. the tart would have been much better if it was made to order and not pre formed and served in a cast iron pan just for looks. We each took one bite of it and left it. Luckily for us, there was a lovely couple dining next to us celebrating a birthday, and had brought a delicious cake and shared it with us! Best part of the night. Overall, it was truly a disappointing experience. Serving wine that is lower-grade than Barefoot (I love barefoot) and charging that much is sinful. And giving us the cheapest wine and charging for a more expensive wine is...