Bartini — Restaurant in Portland

WORST SERVICE EVER! Wow, I was absolutely shocked and disgusted at how unbelievably terrible the staff was! I can't even rate the food or drinks because we never even got that far. This place deserves zero stars for the staff alone.

We were a group of 6 and showed up on Sunday night around 6:00 and put our name on the list. None of us had ever been here before and were excited to try out their happy hour. We sat outside at a table right next to the door talking and listening for our name to be called. After about an hour of waiting and checking in a couple times to see where we were on the list, and already getting some attitude by the two blonde female servers, we decided to check in again. The male busser told us we had been skipped because our entire party wasn't here. Which was a lie because all 6 of us had been there the entire time. So he quickly cleared a spot for us and sat us down at 7:00. At this point we were just ready to try out some martinis and eat. Pretty much every table was full and most of us have worked in the service industry in the past so we completely understand if the establishment is busy and a server needs time to take care of all their tables. However, this was not the case. After about 10 minutes of sitting there content and talking we all started to wonder when we would be helped. At about the 15 minute mark we decided to then watch the staff and see why nobody had bothered to even come up to us and offer water or tell us they would be right with us. At this point we were being intentionality ignored for absolutely no reason. We watched as the two female servers stood at the computers talking and testing drinks, giving their other tables water refills, and taking second drink orders. And we have not even been approached by any of the staff. 20 minutes had gone by and at this point we were all livid. None of the staff would even make eye contact with us, NOTHING. So at this point we decided to take our money elsewhere. When we finally got up and left at 7:23, 23 minutes after being sat and not having one staff member approach our table. As we were leaving we confronted the male busser, who originally told us we had been skipped on the list, and told him how incredibly unprofessional and rude this was and how we had sat there for 23 minutes with no help, and mind you this place is tiny so there was no mistaking it that this was purely an accident. Then he has the audacity to play dumb and tell us that he was so sorry and let him find someone to help us right away. Of course this place had already burned their bridge with us and we wanted nothing more than to leave and never come back. After confronting him my friend also confronted the female server who was helping the tables around us, assuming it was her section. The server was standing off to the side eating her food and also tried to play dumb and say I am so sorry. How annoying and inconvenient it was that we checked up on our names a couple times to make sure we didn't get skipped on the list, which ended up happening, and then getting intentionally ignored by the staff for 23 minutes before leaving. I could not believe the staff had the audacity to treat paying customers this way. It is absolutely unprofessional and embarrassing for the establishment. You have lost all 6 of our business and of course we will be sharing this story with other people. Luckily there was an amazing McMenamins across the street with incredible service and friendly people. Highly recommend McMenamins would NEVER...

UPDATE 2: The manager reached out to me and I was invited to come back for a free fondue and round of drinks, so I decided to give Bartini another chance. This experience was definitely better than the last, but they're still not as great as they used to be, unfortunately. The hostess had no clue about our reservation and I had to show her my email conversation with the manager. I understand that Bartini does not normally take reservations, but I feel like in this case the staff should have been notified... I had set up a specific date/time with the manager in advance. Overall the drinks and food are still good and a great value, but the service and atmosphere just aren't what they used to be. UPDATE: I've been back to Bartini many times since my initial review, and even spent my birthday night out with friends here. Sadly, my opinion has greatly diminished. My partner and I decided to venture over for a date night and arrived less than half an hour after opening and found it was already packed. We put our name on the list inside, and decided to enjoy the nice weather while we waited. At one point, a blonde waitress acknowledged us and asked if we were on the list, which we confirmed. We checked on the list every 20 minutes or so while we waited, and eventually found we had been SKIPPED. (And this isn't the first time this has happened to us.) My partner asked one of the wait staff what happened, and he said our name had been called outside without answer. This is impossible. We never moved further than 10 feet from the door, no names were called. Wait staff were attending to customers seated outside, but no names were called. We were finally seated after over an hour of waiting. (And parties who had arrived AFTER we did were seated before us.) We didn't get water, utensils, or napkins until after our food and drinks were served, the food/drink were not on par with our previous experiences here, and it took RIDICULOUSLY long to get our check and pay.

Overall, this experience has me seriously rethinking whether or not I'll visit Bartini again. ORIGINAL REVIEW 2/19: Bartini is hands-down my favorite happy hour in the Portland metro area. We almost always have the same server, whose name I unfortunately have not gotten, but he's incredible! He never writes anything down yet always manages to remember everything, even when we've ordered multiple rounds of drinks & food. The Matcha Do About Nothing is my FAVORITE cocktail and at just under $5 during happy hour, it just can't be beat. Everything I've eaten here (almost everything on their menu) has been...

I know the food and drinks are great because I’ve been to their sister restaurant Urban Fondue multiple times and have had a completely different service experience than I had for my first time at Bartini. Their waitlist system is a little weird but we eventually figured it out. The hostess/waitress on the other had was so unbelievably rude and her attitude was horrible. But again, I love the food and drinks and was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt because they were busy so we put our name and phone number in and went to the bar next door while we waited since there isn’t really a waiting area and it was cold and rainy outside. (Btw the pharmacy bar next door was great and the bartenders we so kind and made killer drinks). Mind you before we went next door I noticed the bartini waitress clearing names from the waitlist only one of the handful she cleared out had the “paged at “ status next to them which I thought was odd, especially because people that were waiting before us in the bar didn’t even get sat, people who had just walked in did (assuming they were the one group that had the paged at status next to their name). She annoyingly assured us that if we put our phone number in we would get a text when the table was ready. I checked 3 times to make sure the phone number was in with my other information. We waited about an hour because that’s how long the table that was seated when we walked in waited, and still no text. We go back over and our name isn’t even on the list anymore! She had completely just taken us off and again were rudely told that “it’s gonna be a minute you’re gonna have to wait like everyone else”. I just could not believe the attitude, unprofessional, and the lack of customer service. I totally get it, she was slammed and the only one waitressing the whole sit down bar area but also we weren’t rude to begin with, we were just trying to make sure we weren’t gonna lose our table before we even left and she knew we had been waiting and were on the list. As much as I want to blame whatever technical error their waitlist system had, I know she just saw that we weren’t there when the table was ready and just took us off the list like she did with the other waitlist names when we walked in, didn’t even page us. So disappointing. Maybe I’ll give them another try with a different...