Ford's Garage Short Pump — Restaurant in Short Pump

My own initial instinct was to keep expressed feedback between myself and the shift manager, but the check closeout chaos so infuriated my party after we had already complained that it feels like other potential guests need to know…

Ford’s Garage - Short Pump is NOT yet “ready for prime time”. Ford’s Garage - Short Pump appears unlikely to be ready for prime time without:

1 ) new dedicated leadership, 2 ) a serious reimagining of its staffing levels and communication between front of house and back of house, and 3 ) at least 3 to 6 months of intensive training and team building to iron out the myriad kinks.

In nearly a quarter century of patronizing restaurants, I personally have neither observed nor experienced such an all-encompassing, system-wide failure in the hospitality industry.

The host station has no solid feel yet for how fast tables turn and how many tables they have with which to work. They played it too safe in the dinner pop and told guests extremely conservative, extremely long wait times that not only discouraged a lot of guests and led to people leaving, but also contributed to true wait times that were about half of what was reported.

The bar was weeded to the point of having extreme tunnel vision. They were so focused on filling drink orders for the guests at tables, it was incredibly hard for patrons at the bar to get their attention, to get drinks, and to close out checks as patrons got sat. When we got sat, it took our friend 10 full minutes to closeout the check at the bar before he was able join us at the table.

The servers were personable, but they appeared to have too many tables and were too spread out. As a result, INATTENTIVEness was THE defining feature of our night. It took more than:

10-15 minutes to get greeted, another 20-25 minutes to get waters, and another 5-10 minutes to get the cocktails from the bar.

If the bar was ignoring bar guests because they were so weeded taking care of table guests and yet the tables STILL had to wait as long for drinks as we did, then it would seem the bar experienced what in hospitality should be regarded as a general catastrophic failure.

The kitchen was simply not able to keep up with the demands of the front of house. Food felt like it took close to an hour to be served after orders were placed. They initially only brought 4 of our 5 meals, and it was more than another 10-15 minutes before our fifth’s burger came out. Of the 4 burgers the table ordered, mine was the only one that arrived as ordered: medium well. The other 3 were ordered as medium-rare but instead received medium-well. The 3 orders of ribs were the driest ribs any of us had ever had.

The manager had only been promoted from bartender to shift manager that very week and informed us they had lost half the staff the night before. He partially comped us as a good will gesture but when the server later claimed the comps could not apply to split checks, tempers at the table finally hit their boiling point.

What happened last night is, in my view, a failure of leadership: Ford’s Garage - Corporate & the general manager. The mass exodus of so much staff suggests the workplace environment behind the scenes is trash and the team is demoralized. The guests are now suffering because of leadership’s failures.

One sad irony is that Henry Ford’s indisputable claim to fame is based on the vision and willpower he brought to bear in optimizing the production process. Yet at the restaurant bearing his name we could not get seats, food, drinks, or checks produced in anything like a timely fashion.

I showed up hoping to be taken care of for a night. Instead the chaos I observed and had to manage totally engaged my “work brain” and compromised my holiday evening out with my friends. Even writing this review is additional work that Ford’s Garage - Short Pump created for me.

If you are looking to relax and be taken care of, do NOT choose Ford’s Garage. Not yet. They...

LONG STORY BUT READ IT PLEASE!

Ok, Imagine booking a reservation on a Monday with someone named Katie for your son's 9th birthday. The reservation consists of 25 people. Katie tells you how you may have to wait, but she has you down for your reservation on your son's Birthday. You go the rest of the week looking forward to celebrating your son at the one restaurant that he choose to eat at. When you get to the restaurant, the hostess tells you that there isnt a reservation anywhere on the calendar and that they can't accommodate you. You ask to speak to the manager Katie that you spoke with, but she's not working that day. (She usually does, but today's an exception. (For whatever reason.) The floor manager is present but shes too busy to come immediately, so you have to wait. When she finally comes over, she confirms that there isnt a reservation and that they cant accommodate your party of 25. You notice an open room so you suggest that room as an option but they tell you that the AC is broken. You mentioned that your party is still willing to sit there, but the manager says that she doesnt have enough servers to accommodate that room, plus she says that other customers would want to sit in that room as well. You have a dialog with the manager (Shanta) and after asking what her solution to the issue is, 4 times, she finally says that they will block off tables as people begin to get up and your party will wait as long as they can to be seated being that the birthday boy REALLY wanted to dine in at this restaurant. In the meantime, you ask the receptionist to put your ICE CREAM CAKE back into the freezer so it could stay cold. The receptionist agrees

So after an hour and a half of waiting your party is finally ready to be seated. You have a PHENOMENAL, OUT OF THIS WORLD server named BRITTANY who made all of your troubles seem like a thing of the past. She was warm, she was welcoming and she was willing to get your needs met in a timely manner. The food was DELICIOUS! Once the checks come, you ask Brittany if she can get the manager to see if she's willing to take a small percentage off of the birthday boys family's meal. Shanta comes out and explains how being that they accommodates your party without a reservation, that she is not going to give anyone a discount. You explain to her that there was a ball dropped on their end and it was an inconvenience and a disservice to the customer. She goes on to say that she really doesn't know whether you actually had a reservation on the first place and how she's done enough. The server gets wind of what is going on and is so disappointed in the managers actions. The manager ends up coming back out saying that she just got off the phone with the GM (Katie) and Katie says to give THE ENTIRE table 25%. Shanta also comes back and says that the receptionist accidentally put the ice cream cake in the refrigerator and not in the freezer, so now the birthday cake has melted. To accommodate us, Katie tells Shanta to give us all free dessert, but it can only be the brownie and ice cream. The down side to that? Some people don't eat chocolate. Oh and the said manager that was too busy to greet us in the beginning? Was also in the bathroom on her phone when I walked in. We got to the restaurant at 7, some got there at 6:30. We didn't leave until 11:30. Again, the food 10/10 (fries weren't hot but they were edible) Our server was a 10/10 The overall experience with management...

On March 14th, my family and I dined at your restaurant to celebrate my grandson's 8th birthday. We had a total of 9 in our party. We arrived at the restaurant at 6:30pm and was told it was going to be a 45-minutes wait until we could be seated. The wait time did not seem unreasonable since the restaurant appeared to be pretty well packed. We decided to wait. Around 7:30pm, we checked in with the hostess and was told that we were first on their list, but they did not have a table available to accommodate us quite yet. So, we continued to wait. At 7:55pm received a text and we checked in and we were seated. Once we sat down, we were greeted by our waitress, and we started placing our drink orders that included alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages. Although we had a table of 9, we had 4 separate bills that were going to be served. My party was just 2 persons, and we ordered the Ford Famous Shrimp along with our drink order. All the drinks and the one appetizer came out pretty quick. Once those things were served, we all started placing our food orders. I would say it's about 8:15 at this time. So, the food order was placed. At about 8:45, we inquired about the food because my daughter had to work at 11:00 pm and we wanted to make sure we would get our food soon. We were told by our server that the kitchen was working on it. At 9:00 we requested the manager after seeing several tables around us being served, yet they were seated after us. One being a party about the same size as ours. The manager came out and told us that the food order had just been put in 12 minutes ago and that it would still be a little while before we received our food. She offered the explanation that the appetizers and drinks held up the food order being placed. Mind you we only had one appetizer for the whole table and all the drinks, and that said appetizer came out fairly quickly when were seated an hour ago. At 9:20 our food started coming out. My daughter had to cancel her order because she had to leave at 9:30 and was not able to eat dinner with her son and family for his birthday. Imagine his disappointment. She missed the meal and the singing of Happy Birthday and desert which we bought in. As the food was being served, one burger had to be sent back because it was undercooked. My meatloaf was mushy and cold. Mu mashed potatoes were cold and the green beans might as well had been raw. We also ordered a full rack of ribs to-go and they were dry and tough when we ate them the next day. Although your staff tried to be apologetic, I think that not owning that server dropped the ball on this and they made us feel as if we did something wrong in the situation. They made us feel as if we were trying to get something for free. At 10:30, when we finished up the evening and were presented with checks that had wrong items on them and had to be fixed and split accordingly. It was just one thing after another. The only highlight was your staff singing Happy Birthday to my grandson. Other than, that it was a horrible first experience. We were offered 10% off the bills, but it really wasn't about the cost, it was more so how we were treated when these things were presented to the Managers and the excuse that was given to made it seem as if we the customer dropped the ball with our orders in some way. This experience does not make me want to return again if that's the experience I'm going to have after spending 4 hours at...