Café Niche

Look at me being all generous giving a star. By far the worst dining experience ever! Made reservations for Thanksgiving dinner. They ether overbooked, got greedy, allowed walk-ins and most definitely do not have a clue how to manage. When we arrived they said they left a message on my phone, saying it was at least an hour delay. I didn't get that. They claimed people were done eating but over staying...sure. Can you say reservation? They had opened the neighboring business, a hair salon, for a waiting area. People sitting around, nibbling on the potato chips, grapes and cheese they put out on a table. As we walked through looking for a place to sit we saw dirty glasses/dishes everywhere. We sat in barber chairs near a sink with dirty supplies in it and a plate with a large block of cheese resting on the edge of the counter next to it. The wonderful smell of hair products wetting our appetite. I would have bailed by now but owed my wife a nice dinner and where to go at 5pm on Thanksgiving. Also she does not give up on a disaster as I do. We were all at their mercy. We moved to sitting up front soon as there was room, more dirty dishes sitting around us. Could not get a drink while you waited because there was no one to wait on you. Overheard hostess telling the owner that the manager of the salon called and said to keep all the people out of the back. (This will come up later.) After about 50 minutes she came to us and said she could get us seated at the bar. Fine. It was chaos! People running around in a panic and banging dishes, so relaxing I wanted to kill myself. Eventually served and one of the owners came by and asked who we were and gave us the third degree, "Did you just come in here and seat yourself!?" When our food arrived we got over the family style serving of the sides where we had to wrestle the asparagus from plate to plate with just our fork and knife. Not actually so bad since the bar counter is so small your plates all touch anyway. The girl putting away the clean glasses onto the dirty counter was not quite enough to put my clean freak wife over the edge. Kept hoping for the thing that would tilt my wife into letting me get out of hell. When our salmon arrived under cooked and cold in the middle....nope she just had us send it back. Me, very done with this place. When my phone rings at 6:18 and it's the hostess asking if we wanted our reservation, which was for 4:45, I said we are sitting at your bar and hung up. Then round two of our dinner was brought out. A little too quickly and so we skipped the wrestling and she cut strait to the cold undercooked center of her salmon. I stood up and asked my wife..."Now?" "Hell yeah" she said. I helped her with her coat and as I grabbed mine and looked at the guy behind the bar, I assume you do not need anything from us?" “No. Sorry." Nice, our Thanksgiving ruined and we walk out with a sorry. As stated earlier....as we left there were more people in the salon waiting area and more walking up. Now the back section roped off and people packed in the front like sardines. I get that sorry was about the only recourse he had (the other owner I believe) because I am quite sure he lacked the courage to do what was right.... Stop letting people in, stop serving, close up and get out of the restaurant business. At a minumum comp some food and beverage to the guests you were torchuring. The avalanche of failures was mind blowing. One or two failure is a bad night, they happen. This.... there is no excuse. And I am sorry for the long review but how do you sum up so many failures and I'm sure I forgot some as well.