Hey Love — Restaurant in Portland

This might be the worst Portland trendy restaurant I’ve had the misfortune of patronising. Where do I even begin?

The sign said that we were to seat ourselves. When walking around, I immediately noticed the volume. It did not seem so bad at the time I walked in, but that was to change. Later when seated, I could barely hear my friend talk from two feet away. Much to my chagrin, I also saw that the tiny tables were unacceptably close together. Most normal people sitting on the wall side had to do an unappealing series of awkward gyrations to extract themselves from the disgracefully small space between the disgracefully small tables. Why would one have to get up from the table? Well, let me get there.

To view the menu, we were presented with two idiotic options. The first was to navigate our way out of the wall seating and through a bunch of sweaty locals to get the menu from the bar. The other option is the inconvenient QR code provided.

When you are ready to order, a server does not come to your table. Either you order online through an irritating website linked from that QR code or you can go up to the bar to order. We did both. Unless you have your credit card linked to a payment app on your phone, you have to type in your card details. After becoming sufficiently fed up, I went up to the bar to order only for the bartenders to take seven minutes to actually take my order. This was presumably because I wasn’t alone in my frustration with the digital payment method and other patrons wanted to order in person…like most people would expect from a normal restaurant. Half of the reason people dine at restaurants is for convenience and this one has failed at this harder than this state’s small towns dealing with drug addictions.

The menu seemed like it had a good selection initially. I recently stopped eating meat and opted for the crispy tofu sandwich. It came with these “wheat puffs”, which had a taste befitting of something to be found in the back room of an abandoned dollar store. The sandwich itself was a sad and bland mess at best and the concept of spices was obviously foreign to the owners of this excuse of a restaurant.

The menu did have one redeeming feature - I enjoyed a couple of the cocktails. I still haven’t decided if the drinks were actually good or if I just needed the soothing effect of the alcohol to stomach this horrific restaurant experience. Perhaps I am being a little uncharitable and I should give them the benefit of the doubt here: finally, this restaurant got SOMETHING right! It’s like the slow kid that the teacher selected for reading in class finally muddled their way to the end of the page. However, this isn’t the public education system: one positive quality does not mean you get a pass.

Did I enjoy my food? No!

Did I enjoy the atmosphere? No!

Did I receive high quality service? No!

Will I ever eat here again? No!

Will I be telling all of my friends to stay...

From the moment we walked in, the customer service was shockingly rude and aggressive. My friend and I ordered drinks at the bar, and when the bartender asked if we wanted to close the tab, my friend replied, “Uh, maybe—I’m not sure,” and looked at me for my input. Before I could say anything, the bartender snapped, “It’s a yes or no, not maybe,” in an unnecessarily harsh and condescending tone.

We tried to shake it off and sat at a two-top table. It was loud inside, so my friend sat next to me in the booth so we could actually talk without yelling. No one was around us at the time. Later, a couple sat at the table next to ours, and we were all fine — friendly even.

Then, a waitress named Jessica (who claimed to be the manager, with dark hair and two clips in the front) came over and asked if we were waiting for a third person. We politely said no, my friend was just sitting next to me because of the noise level. Instead of understanding, she told my friend she had to move to the chair to give the couple next to us “personal space.” My friend reasonably pointed out that we were here first, and the couple hadn’t said anything. Jessica rudely replied, “Well, I’m trying to seat a party of two and I tried to ask nicely” while walking away — which she absolutely did not.

We checked in with the couple ourselves, and they were just as confused as we were. They even said, “No, not at all. If anything, we thought we were invading your space.” We all ended up laughing at how ridiculous the situation was — but still, the whole encounter was uncomfortable and unnecessary.

If that’s how the manager treats paying customers, it says a lot about what kind of behavior this place tolerates. Unprofessional, hostile, and completely lacking in basic hospitality. Do...

Several days each week I drive past Hey Love and I have thought to stop sometime when I am not coming or going elsewhere. Well, last night was the night. My husband and I had not intended to stop, but our brand new car overheated (yes, really!) and we parked about a block away. We called for service and decided to walk the block to Hey Love to check out the scene and let the car cool down. When we arrived we went through the bar to request outside seating. We were seated quickly and took a look at the online menu (QR code attached to the table). We received a warm greeting and a carafe of water before we even had a chance to peruse the menu. We then ordered. It was a matter of a few minutes before our drinks arrived. Husband had an old fashion which he reported as good and I had a glass of sav blanc. It was equally good and its temperature perfect. A few sips into our drinks and our nachos came out along with small plates as we were sharing. The nachos were plentiful, but not grossly overabundant. Consequently, we had to suffer no food waste guilt by leaving a bunch of them on the plate. There was plenty of meat, cheese sauce, and some other traditional nacho toppings, but there was no guac, olives, or sour cream. We had no problem with that because we didn't walk away feeling like we'd had way too much fat. There were a few very thin slices of radish and jalapeño which added a nice zing. We agreed the nachos were quite enjoyable and would have them, again. The one negative is the street noise, which has nothing to do with the restaurant. The outside tables are on Burnside Street...