IMPERIAL STEAKHOUSE — Restaurant in San Diego

This review is for Dave Walker, the incredibly rude chef/manager of this steakhouse that refused to talk to me and left me hungry but had the audacity to still charge me for a steak I didn’t eat on our Valentine’s dinner.

Some background: my husband and I moved to the area a month ago and wanted to try this steakhouse because WE LOVE STEAK. So in mid-January we came into this restaurant to celebrate a recent promotion I had gotten. The steak was AMAZING –by far the best steak I’d had in my life and I used to work at a high end steakhouse in San Francisco! Great taste, cooked perfectly, it was so good I raved about it to everyone. We went to the bar afterwards and hung out with a very pleasant Thursday night piano guy. We had tons of fun and couldn’t wait to come back. Then came Valentine’s Day; my husband and I don’t like to go out on the actual day because all restaurants are crazy busy and we’d prefer to stay away from the madness so we went the day before.

The place was empty just like the previous time we came in. It doesn’t bother us, we actually kind of like it. We ordered our steaks; I got the boneless rib-eye medium rare and my husband got the NY strip medium which is exactly what we got the previous time. The food came and I took a bite. It was overcooked to medium, medium well in some spots. My husband did the same, his was severely under cooked and in some spots it was rare. My first thought was maybe they switched the temperatures on accident. But I gave the cook the benefit of the doubt and took 3 more bites on other ends and in the center hoping that maybe it was medium rare elsewhere on the steak. Nope. It was just overcooked.

Now let me preface this with the fact that I HAVE NEVER given back a steak before and I’ve also only ever sent back a plate ONCE in my life because the food was cold (at a different restaurant). I’m not one of those people that send food back because I know the hassle it causes. I know because I have 5 years’ experience in the restaurant industry and 2 of those years were in fine dining at steakhouses. I’m not sure who the mistake was on but clearly the steaks temperatures were mixed up. I wasn’t trying to get a free meal I just wanted to get the steak I ordered. Had I known a fiasco would ensue I would have just switched our steaks even though we’re not fans of each other’s cuts of meat.

The server took my entire plate back to the kitchen then came back to us asking if there was anything else I would like to order. This left me without words for a few moments because I could tell they weren’t going to give me another steak. I asked are they going to give me anything and the server said “no, the cook said the steak was fine.” I asked to speak with a manager because that is some seriously horrible customer service. The server came back saying “he won’t come out to speak with you.”

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING ME.

In what manager’s right mind does he not come out to speak with a customer after taking their food away and not giving them anything but $10 off a $50 steak that I only took a few bites from? The server tried to help out and gave us a round of drinks but this still left me HUNGRY and still didn’t cover the cost of an uneaten steak. My husband and I were so shocked at the sheer rudeness of the chef/manager whose name I asked for as well as the owners name because now I’m going to be writing to them about this incident.

I still can’t believe it. Never have I come across such a cowardly chef/manager in my years of experience in the industry. Fine, you don’t agree that the steak was overcooked, but at least give your customer SOMETHING to eat.

Dave I hope you know, since you won’t talk to me, I will be contacting the owners about your behavior. It was disappointing and rude. A customer shouldn’t have to deal with that and your bosses should know about it.

I honestly hate to do this because I’ve never dealt with this before but WOW. Just wow. Dave you’ve...

The worse bartender ever!! This ghastly excuse for a bartender should not work with the general public in a service capacity. My fiance and I went out with a group of friends on Saturday night. We have heard great reviews regarding the ambiance at this place by my co workers, but we were forewarned to NOT eat here, and that the bartender is incredibly rude. We figured that we couldn't pass up live music and great ambiance so we decided to risk it, and as long as we didn't eat there we would be fine. Plus how bad could a bartender actually be? Maybe he just happened to have a bad night in previous encounters with my co workers? well it turns out that this bartender is actually the most awe-inspiring, loathsome, and unwelcoming bartender we have ever come across (We go out often so we are somewhat educated in the art of drinking and dealing with bartenders). Upon arriving I decided to purchase the first round of drinks and I happily and eagerly approach the bar. I unhurriedly waited for the bartender to acknowledge me. He finally looked over and to my dismay he rolled his eyes when he realized I wanted to order drinks. He dreadfully asked what I wanted? I asked for several drinks and then proceeded to ask if he had the ingredients for a particular drink that I wanted because not many bars do. He woefully replied "yes" and walked away behind the bar. He came back with the several drinks I ordered and my particular drink. I thought to myself "he isn't so bad, he just happens to mournfully dislike people, I get it, people can be jerks sometimes". As I come back to the booth where my friends and fiancee are sitting I take the first sip of my drink and much to my surprise it was vile and repulsive (its not an overly complicated drink, you just need 3 ingredients). After letting my fiancee taste it to confirm that it was in fact terrible and not just my taste buds, she convinced me along with my friends that the bartender most likely would not mind exchanging it for me. After all this drink was NOT even close to what I asked for. So Again I cautiously yet happily approached the bar again and stated in a friendly manner that this was not what I asked for, and that if wasn't not too much trouble if he wouldn't mind just exchanging this drink for me. He detestably looked at me, and asked what else I wanted. I continued to choose to have a good time, and not let this hateful bartender ruin our night. As the night went on I decided that I was going to get another round of drinks as the ambiance and live music was great and perhaps now that the bar had more patrons he might have put on his "game face" on and decided to be at the very least well-mannered. NOPE!! I approached the bar once again in a more serious less eager manner, as it was clear that at this point I only wanted my drinks and good customer service was secondary. So again I ask for several very easy to make drinks(2 ingredients) and he proceeds to irritably make them. As he brings the drinks to me I ask to close my tab, even though I am a glutton for punishment I had had enough morbid service for the night. When my bill comes I notice that there was a charge for the drink that I returned, and asked to exchange. I tried to get the bartenders attention as I did not feel I should have to pay for a drink that I did not want. He dismissed my attempt to try and grab his attention and moved on to serving other people. I decided to not make a scene for one drink, how ever his appalling excuse of customer service and odious attitude has led me to leave this bad review. If any one is reading this, please have drinks else where and simply go there for the live music. Tip the awesome Pianist Rick Lyons and enjoy yourself. AVOID the...

NYE Dinner ruined by horrible customer service and wrong orders, and along with being laughed at by the waiter when I addressed one of my issues.

1st. My girlfriend made reservations for 8pm, so she called them to confirm, and they seemed upset she called and told her they tried calling her earlier to confirm it as well. Zero missed calls by the way. So they allowed us the reservation.

2nd. When we arrive, we were let down by the limited menu they had, which non of what we wanted to order, except the Salmon. We wanted 2 different steaks that were not served (some steak house) Shrimp (how could you leave shrimp off?) and Fish and Chips (Main reason I wanted this place)

2nd part 2. After the menu let down, we were asked twice by two different staff members if we had reservations, and after we said yes, they just walked away and said someone will come help you. During this a woman kept running, yes running up to the desk checking the reservations list, so I asked her after seeing her do this a few times, is this a bad thing or good thing? She told me the cooks want to know because they want to close early (RED FLAG)

3rd. Now were seated with no offer of a drink or anything. After sitting for about 10 minutes the waiter comes up and finally asked for a drink order. We both asked for a Jamison and Ginger ale which when he returned the drinks looked correct in the glass that they were served in but as we took a big drink thinking that it was mixed with Ginger ale it was straight Jamison. When the waiter arrived with our bread which I’ll get to in a minute I explain to him that the drinks were not mixed with the ginger ale and it actually hurt me to take that drink and if he could please bring me a cup of Ginger ale during the time I was explaining this to him he was just laughing at me like it was funny which it was not.

4th The bread that was served was basically dry toast with two big cubes a very very cold butter very unappealing no taste and very bland

5th. Our waiter comes up to me and explains to me that they only have one lobster brisque left which I was confused about, because how do you just have one left, so he offered me a clam chowder or salad which neither one of them I wanted, I didn’t even want the lobster brisque but was forced to take it in this limited menu special that they had so now that I’m being forced to take this menu item they don’t even have it. A few minutes later he returns with two lobster brisque very proud of himself but as he sets the bowls down both bowls have zero lobster inside which I don’t know if they were supposed to just be for flavor or if there was actually supposed to be chunks of lobster, but there was nothing inside this lobster brisque but a half bowl of some very very weak soup.

6th. This is almost related to the 5th thing but he came and re-took our order completely because he forgot everything we had ordered so now onto the 7th thing

7th The two steaks that they offered was a ribeye with a bone in and a ribeye with a bone out, I took the option of the ribeye with the bone out, can anyone guess what this waiter brought me? yes everyone, he brought me the wrong steak he brought me one of two steaks that were on this limited menu and it was wrong. I just wanted to leave at this point.

8th The veggies was just uncooked broccoli with more cold butter. We were denied the mashed potatoes and given a baked potato wrapped in foil with you guessed it more cold butter.

9th My cheese cake looked like they dropped it on the floor the way it was so flat on the plate.

$198 was my bill here.

What a horrible memory leaving this...