The Herb Box — Restaurant in Scottsdale

For anyone reading, I advise against patronage other than maybe ordering ahead for take-out, especially if it's a busy night. Good food, subpar operations.

The two of us showed up on time at the Old Town location for our 6:15 reservation on Valentine's Day. 3 course prix-fixe: app, entrée, and dessert.

In short, we spent more time waiting than eating, and were there for over 3 hours before leaving with our thrice-requested desserts to-go. The ambience, service, and menu certainly did not warrant a dinner that long. All indications point to poor preparations, serious incompetence in leadership, and organizational dysfunction. Perhaps the experience would have been worth the money on a normal night, when the various issues would not be compounded by the busy occasion.

The good: -Food was tasty and provided in good portion sizes. Generally commensurate with pricing. The cocktail recipes were good, but a little weak on the first round. -Live music (solo performer with guitar) was talented and appropriate for the occasion. -Our server Adam, while inexperienced, was polite and obviously trying his best given the situation. -There were some heaters on the patio, mostly sufficient for warmth earlier in the evening.

The bad and ugly: -The two-tops were extremely close together, so cramped that even quiet conversation was quite audible to your neighbors and vice-versa. We engaged in open commiseration with a couple other parties by the end of the night. -Several diners had to request their silverware. Many tables did have them present on arrival, though several had one or all missing. -Requests that are typically quick, such as the silverware or cocktails, took much longer than expected. Seemingly understaffed, especially on the patio. -The direct waitstaff were courteous and apologetic, but it seemed like some never received adequate training/preparation. -Multiple occasions of orders brought to the wrong table, even with waitstaff present. One couple was presented with dessert before entrées arrived. -Poor prioritization of service to various parties, such as serious variability in times from ordering to serving (even between those requesting identical items from the Valentine's menu). Á la carte orders seemed to be handled quicker than and prioritized over the prix-fixe menu. -Food prep times were significantly longer than could be expected for the menu and number of diners. Waiters had to apologize quite frequently and repeatedly for the kitchen and bar being backed up. Neither caught up by the time the kitchen closed. -One couple with a 7:30 reservation was seated around 8:30, and wasn't able to place an order until almost 9:00. -Despite many of these issues arising early in the evening, there was no clear action taken by staff/leadership to mitigate the situation. No visit by a manager, no comps (until one party got a discount on request), and no change in how service was provided/prioritized. Some parties that were seated later (10 minutes before kitchen close) received free champagne and had their multi-course orders taken all at once. However, such accommodations were not offered to those who had already sat through painfully long intervals between service.

Any one of the problems could be chalked up to a busy event night, but all in combination they made for an extremely disappointing dining experience. My overall impression was of poor planning, poor execution, and a clear absence of anyone with the initiative or ability to lead a team through efficient...

Update November 2021

I could write a review for every time I go here. We went for dinner before Canal Convergence and our server was Schae (pronounced Shay) or as she says Schaefer without the fer. :) Schae made our experience so lighthearted and fun! She was attentive and so very helpful. We both ordered the French Martini's which are fruity yet not too sweet. For our entree's we both had the Baha bowls with blackened shrimp, quinoa, black beans, yams, and avocado. It was SUPER flavorful with a little bit of heat. They customized my husband's without some of the things he doesn't like and I appreciated the gluten free aspect to it. It's protein packed and we never felt over-full but very satisfied. Schae was really helpful on questions we had about the menu and the patio is always a great venue to enjoy a meal at.

The only downside to the meal was someone nearby who decided to ignore her dinner partner while chatting on her cell loudly for 20 minutes. Ugh.

If you go, ask for Schae....you'll be happy you did! Cheers!

The great food is just the beginning....

We had an amazing date night last Friday! The food served at The Herb Box is always amazingly fresh and perfectly cooked and seasoned. The food is consistently wonderful no matter what on the menu you order. Plus it's all really good-for-you food as well - so you don't ever feel overfull or guilty. We had the white bean chicken chili to start and followed it up with the mini short rib tacos. YUM!! The manhattans on the menu were also very good and it was the perfect way to start our evening walking along the canal! Next door there is also deserts and drinks to go!

However, our most favorite part of the evening was our server, Collin Thompson! From the moment we met him, we knew we were in for something special. He was attentive, polite, made wonderful suggestions, and made us feel welcomed and happy we were there. We even ran into a client of my husband's and Collin took my husband over next door to actually pick out the deserts we wanted to send to their table as a gift. We will definitely let Collin know when we are coming back to make sure we get to see him again! You'll meet him as a server, but by the end of the night he will quickly become your friend! It was such a pleasure to ask for the manager that evening and tell them what a treasure they have in Collin! All in all.... A...

Absolutely terrible experience. My family and I will never be back and I would not recommend.

We made a reservation for a birthday party here, as one person in the party had been here before and thought it would be great for a few family members with dietary restrictions/allergies. Upon arrival, they apologized, but informed us that they didn’t have our reservation in their system so we would have to be seated outside (in the middle of summer). Disappointed that they forgot to enter our reservation in the system, we reluctantly headed outside. We were seated in a corner where there was very little airflow and the misters couldn’t reach. Overheated to say the very least and that alone makes a pretty horrible experience.

To make a very long story short, the service was terrible. We were forgotten about often. We didn’t have silverware and had to ask for it from the bar. After waiting for our drinks, we never received refills and eventually had to stand in the kitchen to ask for those and a pitcher of ice to cool our soon to be quickly melting drinks down. The server who delivered our food was rude, visibly agitated, and even ignored folks in our party when they asked for condiments that should have come with their meal. Some folks in our party loved their food, while others were extremely disappointed and thought it was bland. We ordered dessert and once they brought it out, we were told that they were out of one of the items we ordered (which is fine).

This place was not busy when we were there and when going to the restroom, I spotted several tables that could have been pushed together inside to accommodate our party.

Once we were given our check, we asked to have it split up by party and were told that they can only accept two credit cards. We reiterated that we’d like to split the check by party and then pay with one credit card or cash per bill. We were told that, “we’d have to wait because it would take quite a bit of time to do that”. We did wait about 35 minutes (outside in the heat). We got our checks only to find out that we were charged for the dessert item we never received. We asked to have it corrected and the server seemed extremely aggravated. We waited again to have that corrected.

The entire experience was horrible. Not the way we expected to celebrate a birthday! Also, it is super overpriced...