99 Restaurants — Restaurant in Salem

A personal disappointment; not so much a restaurant complaint....trying to be nice here as I was not planning on writing a review. I do not like to put negative energy out there, not nice, but when Google popped up as I was working on my google maps app it asked me to write a review,.and well here goes...r to start with the waitress offers to bring us a bowl of popcorn while we peruse the menus.. the visibly greasy and tiny chucks of food stuck to my mothers menu... ugh.. going in for a handful of popcorn and noticed 5 black pieces of popcorn; things happen so I go around those unfortunate ones and eat the unscorched peices, but they tasted burnt too...when we brought it to attention she brought us a fresh bowl from a new batch.. yummy!! Then when my onion soup arrives it was a beautiful presentation but it was definitely not made from scratch and it tasted that way. Someone else might like it and might not mind that it wasn't made from scratch meh, but like I said its more a personal preference. House salad only had 2 cherry tomatoes and I couldn't get any Russian or French dressing. Ugh...she offered sweet and sour dressing as she winked but I'm pretty sure it was dip for chicken fingers. Waaaaahhhh, I was so sad... Next thing I can recall was we did not order dessert nor did we order the kids meal that includes dessert, but we were charged for it according to our receipt.. So I wasn't expecting the waitress to bring an icecream sandwich to my nephew that is lactose intolerant. Oh boy... I also remember my nephew ordering double fries instead of two sides to go with his cheeseburger but when it arrived it was clearly one serving of French fries. We left a 20% tip and were thankful for waiting on us but I'm not...

Wednesday after a long day my husband and I just wanted to have a hot meal so we decided to eat at the 99. First tipoff was not many cars in the parking lot at 6:30 pm. Second tipoff we should have left at that time, 2 waitresses where standing near the door just chatting did not even acknowledge us. When we asked for a booth, 60% of the booth area was empty we thought we would get our meals right away. Here comes our waiter named Amstel you could tell he wasn’t pleased to see us. He wanted to know what we wanted to drink (2 sodas) then I told him we would order now he proceeded to turn his head no mask on and started to have a coughing fit. He turned back to us, with no apology for the incident. Tipoff 3, I ordered a soup with salad and my husband chicken parm. Never asked what kind of salad dressing, when I asked what kind they had he replied well what do you want? Tipoff4, waited 18 minutes got our drinks,no salad, no soup. Then the waiter had disappeared for some time as we waited. My husband went to the restroom and on the way, the waiter appeared and informed my husband they are starting to cook your food now 20 minutes later. Clearly the dining room was not busy the bar was not full, soup I am sure was not prepared at that moment , neither is the salad. As far as I know pasta does not take that long to make and I am sure that chicken parm is prepared ahead. We just said we had enough and left. So much for a hot meal....

The food wasn’t bad, I definitely liked their French Onion soup but sadly all the food took a long time to come out. I am giving the 1 star as the service was the worst I have ever witnessed. Our waitress Cheryl was absolutely the rudest. The service was slow, she was very pushy and made us feel like we were ordering too much even though my husband and I only ordered a soup and entree each. She was barely around and when she was it seemed like service us was an inconvenience to her. After waiting for more than 20 mins for her to pick up our check for change back, I asked the host to help us. Doing so I asked to talk to the manager. Before I even got my change back, the waitress was over at my table confronting me and saying that if I had a problem I should come to her and not to her higher ups. She was very loud and making a scene, accusing me of not knowing the customer service business (I have been in the customer service industry for the 10 years+). By the end she was practically screaming. I just couldn’t believe that an establishment would allow such behavior from their employees! After she stomped away, I immediately ask to talked to the assistant manager as I was told the manager was cooking in the back. I would never ever step foot in this 99 again. Definitely wouldn’t recommend this...