For Valentine's Day, my wife and I decided to have dinner at Tre Trattaoria and see a string quartet performance at the Josephine Theater. We made dinner reservations an hour and 45 minutes before we needed to be at the theater which should have been plenty of time. It was not.

Upon arriving we entered the restaurant and stood near the hostess' lectern where were not even acknowledged for 5 minutes. The place was busy but a "We will be with you in just a moment!" would have been nice because I was starting to feel as if we had missed the hostess or were entirely in the wrong part of the restaurant. Finally we were acknowledged and after a few more minutes we were seated, given water and our drink order was taken by the person who seated us. The person who seated us also took an appetizer order when she returned with our drinks. It was a full 25 minutes before our waiter introduced himself and acknowledged that our appetizer order of toasted garlic bread and freshly pulled mozzarella was being prepared. He acknowledged the slow service unprompted and apologized, I was hoping this meant that our entrees would follow soon after the appetizer reached our table

At least a full 40 minutes after our appetizer order was taken, the waiter returned to let us know that the garlic toast was a little too toasted and he was having that issue rectified. Shortly thereafter, our appetizer had finally hit the table with bread that was a rich, dark brown, and it took probably another 5 minutes for properly toasted bread to arrive at our table. The appetizer tasted fine, a bit on the salty side, but very welcome since I had developed quite an appetite. At this point, I had consumed several glasses of iced tea and had to use the restroom. When I returned, my wife was requesting that our entrees be boxed up so that we could pay and leave the restaurant in order to make our show since it was about 40 minutes until the quartet was scheduled to start. He assured my wife that they were working hard to get our food out and compensate us for the slow service.

As we continued to wait, we noticed tables that were seated after us enjoying their entrees, finishing their meals, receiving dessert, paying and leaving. I had tried to remain relaxed so as not to spoil the entire evening, but both my wife and I were incredibly irritated as we watched several tables that arrived after us leave with full bellies. The wait staff knew the service they were offering was subpar and they did their best to avoid eye contact and avoid our table. This compounded our frustration. Eventually we were able to flag someone down and ask to speak to the manager.

The manager arrived at our table, it turns out she was the person who seated us so she was well aware of how long we had been at the restaurant. By this time, the doors to the string quartet were due to close in three or four minutes and all the manager could do was apologize and express that they had too many reservations, no expeditors and the kitchen was backed up. I couldn't care less, we were screwed over so that the kitchen could prepare orders for people that had arrived after us. I asked for the bill for our drinks and appetizer so that I could be on my way and she offered to comp our meal if we would wait a bit longer. At this point I had wasted $60 on tickets to the string quartet because I couldn't get the attention of anyone in order to rectify the issue in a timely manner so I figured I might as well stick around to get my dinner...

Our entrees arrived another ten or fifteen minutes later; I had stopped checking my watch at that point. We left, frustrated and disappointed and will never return to Tre Trattoria or any other Jason Dady restaurant for that matter. Looks like I will have to figure out some other plan to celebrate Valentine's day since this plan was so thoroughly spoiled...