99 Restaurants — Restaurant in Rockland

I LOVE 99 restaurant and have frequented this location for years. Thursday nights are our favorite due to half price apps and trivia games for customers to participate in as a group. On any given day this place would get 5 stars from day one, however, last nights trip left a very disappointing taste in our mouths. We took a seat at the bar for dinner, as usual. We like the atmosphere. It's lively, everyone is interacting and the bartenders are great. Our bartender was Kevin last night. We were pleased. Friendly, fun, great at suggesting which specials are best sellers, etc.. All went well, as it always does, until we paid our tab. We handed in a $100 bill to pay $67 and change bill. Only $12 came back. Confused, we looked at the receipt, which stated that our change should have been $33 and change. Politely called Kevin over to alert him to the mistake. He walked over to his tip jar and pulled out the $20 that was missing. Handed it to my husband, laughed and said "I put it in my tip jar." We then calculated and left behind the 20% tip. ($14.00) The more that we thought about it, the more it bothered us that an employee would take it upon himself to decide what his tip should be. We tried to figure out the train of thought, because no discussion of taking a $20 bill for himself was ever discussed. My husband called the manager the next day to express his disdain for this procedure, as it has never happened here before. He spoke with 'Roger' who clearly did not care and kept repeating that "Kevin is a really nice guy and good bartender." My husband had already stated that Kevin was a nice guy, good server and bartender. His issue was with Kevin helping himself to a tip out of our change. Roger said he'd 'talk to him' and to please seek him out and 'Say hi' next time we're there. We won't be back. We won't be saying 'hi'. Be sure to count your change at this establishment. It appears as if this is common practice, as management did not seem concerned at all by this...

The 99 Restaurants have always been one of my favorite places to go for a variety of reasons. The locations are always convenient with plenty of parking. The staff is consistently professional, friendly, accommodating and have the ability to make people feel welcome and comfortable without being overbearing, phony or too much like some other restaurants train their staff to be. The food is always consistently good and if you go from one location to another 99 location the food is the same. Maintaining the quality standards and keeping the meals consistent from one location to the next. I was in the restaurant business for 25 plus years and feel like I am somewhat qualified to make such observations. In the midst of the chaos of the pandemic and not knowing which restaurants are going to survive I would bet the 99 will not only survive but hopefully thrive. I'm sorry for all the loss that the hospitality industry has endured through this pandemic and all the employees who've probably lost 50% of their income through no fault of their own yet they still smile and persevere. Many of the people in the hospitality industry are in it to either take advantage of the flexible schedule or the amount of money they can make in a shorter period of time to help them through school or save to start their own business or in my case it was a great job for me when my children were young and I didn't have to put them in daycare bc I'd work nights and my husband worked days. For all those reasons we, as a community, need to support the hospitality industry right now and take care of the professionals who've been waiting on them for years and the employees at the 99 are the perfect example of who we need to support. Take the time to thank them and tip them a little extra bc they need it now more than ever. Good luck surviving these unprecedented times and keep up the great food and service the 99...

I don't like the service there on Father's Day dinner with my husband and children. Firstly, from the Hostess to server nobody say Happy Father's Day to my husband or any other tables in my entire dinner as for my observations. It's not good for that special day. Secondly, we, four guests being seated for only 2 sets of silverware table. That's OK, but the entire meal nobody provided the other two silverware settings for us. My son has to wait for my husband to finish his new York strip then my son can borrow husband's fork to eat my son's country fried chicken. I'm trying to catch a server for a fork, but no one come to check our table after entrée dropped. They also should check if guests have silverware before dropping the food. The third, my husband asked for another bottle of Heineken, the server forgot it even when I tried my best to remind her if she charge 2 bottles of Heineken. She said " no". She completely forgot and didn't say "sorry". She did not offer if we wanted any desserts at all. If she offered it, my son's definitely will order because every time we went there. We always ordered desserts. The forth, when we paid for the bill, the tips selection is high now. The choices are no tips/ other tips/ 18%/ 20%/ 25%. And the waitress standing in front of me staring my selection made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't enjoyed last night dinner without a fork for my son's entrée. Nobody cares...