Bru's Room Pompano

Decided to try this place hoping to become regulars as we just moved in a couple minutes away. The one star is for the decent food and atmosphere. Standard food you’d expect at a sports bar but nothing that stood out. However, we were shocked by the 18% AUTOMATIC GRATUITY we were charged for a party of 4 (especially after the poor attitude and service we received), and never notified of until it was already charged. Apparently this is their “policy after 9pm” - I’ve been a server myself and understand wait staff needing to make something for their effort - maybe a 10-15% minimum, but 18% assumes good/great service which this absolutely was NOT. What’s the motivation to provide good service if the server already knows they’re guaranteed a good tip? Case in point: we asked for a knife to cut a sandwich so we could share (among other things we’d ordered), and when I saw the server talking at the bar and counting money as we waited and our food got cold, I walked to the bar to take it myself. Before I could open my mouth, I was met with a very bratty “I’m BRINGING it” and an eye-roll before finally handing it to me (instead of a simple “sorry about that, here you go” and a smile, which would have been fine). Later when I questioned the auto-gratuity and asked for a supervisor, pointing out that we waited as our food got cold and now I understood why she was happy to take her time, the server proceeded to argue with me to the point of raising her voice and continuing even after I said asked her to leave me alone and not speak to me anymore, and she had to be pulled away by a co-worker. I was trying to have a nice dinner with my husband and MIL visiting for thanksgiving weekend, and this server is acting like she’s ready for a bar fight after already getting our money that she didn’t earn! Then I was told they could adjust the tip but it would take 3-5 days to process and involved double-charging our card, it was so convoluted we ended up just signing off and leaving. The whole “policy” is unheard of anywhere else, and if their wait staff all have such poor attitudes and think it’s okay to berate/harass customers, I can see why they’d have to guarantee their tips - it’s the only way could they ever get 18%. Really wanted to like this place but it’s a joke. Also a weird thing (thought not as important) - their silverware and plastic plates are weirdly low-quality for what they charge. Almost like institutional, government-issue like what you’d see in a hospital or jail. Just a weird thing at a sit-down restaurant where menu items average $10-20+.