Sign of the Whale — Restaurant in Stamford

As a member of the restaurant industry, I'm always careful about my reviews because I know how impactful they are. But I can't sugar coat this experience even if I wanted to. We made reservations on OpenTable & drove over from Jersey for our anniversary dinner. 5-10 minutes to be acknowledged, plus an additional 5-10 minutes before we could order; but the server had plenty of time to hang out with some friends & do a couple shots. My boyfriend ordered a four spice burger, medium.....no avocado. The server repeated the order back - avocado, ketchup, onions & a bunch of other stuff that isn't stated on the menu. I understand that in this "new normal" some things are different (not having condiments on the table to reduce the amount of things people touch & need to be cleaned) but explain that to people so they can say "no thanks". The calamari was nothing special, and my shrimp tacos were equally blah. We didn't say anything about the burger only because we didn't see our server again until I was almost finished with my meal. The only time my boyfriend touched the burger was when he tried to scrape off the avocado then noticed everything else on the burger. When the server finally did come to check on us, he didn't even notice the untouched plate & went back to the friends at the bar asking for shots.

Yes, we could have brought it up to the manager (or man in the button down shirt who was counting the bar drawer) except he was too busy checking out girls & dancing with the bartenders & pouring shots for the friends at the end of the bar. 5-10 minutes after our plates were cleared for a dessert order to be taken, and then 20 minutes for it to actually arrive (cookie skillets don't usually take that long unless you forget them somehow, but, it was the best part of the meal so I'll let it slide.)

We paid for everything, including the burger that was never touched. We left roughly 20% even though a vast majority of our experience was in fact due to our server just not caring about anything other than his friends. Honestly, tonight was like every single negative Yelp review my restaurant ever received being acted out in front of my face. As a manager, a server, and a bartender - it appears they are taking advantage of this "new normal" & also being one of only a handful of restaurants open right now - so most people don't have a choice. Eventually they will though, so it might be a good idea to step up their game now before that happens.

PS another thing not mentioned anywhere on the menu or in the building - 3% service charge for extra cleaning measures due to the pandemic. I understand the point behind this....but cleaning should have ALWAYS been a priority. Maybe CT health code is different but I'm pretty sure wet towels strewn around the outside bar, no where near any cleaning liquids of any kind, is not quite worth a 3%...

Worst service we have ever received.

My coworkers and I were pretty excited to get a break from work and we chose sign of the whale for the rooftop seating. There were 8 of us, which isn't a huge party in my opinion. We get there and it takes about 20 minutes for the waitress to actually take our food order, but we were willing to overlook that. After over a half an hour our food was no where in sight. We had to get up and find the waitress, who informed us that a large party had ordered right before us but ensured that our food would be out in 10 minutes. 15 minutes later still nothing. We walk downstairs to see this "large party" and the entire restaurant has 15 people, tops. Though we do run into another group that tells us they had been waiting an hour as well. At this point we had been here for at least an hour, and in this entire time no one has come over to us and apologized for the delay. I go to find the waitress one more time and tell her my concern and that if we cannot get our food in 1 minute we're leaving. She goes to the kitchen to check on it and comes back and tells us 10 more minutes. All we had ordered were burgers and wings, it should not have taken this long. When I tell her we're leaving she says she'll go get our drink bill, I looked at her shocked and asked if she really expected us to pay that. At that point she goes downstairs and has the manager comp them off the bill. We quickly left but one of my friends was so hungry that on our way out he ate leftover fries off a plate at an empty table. That's what the service at Sign of the Whale drives you to do.

I worked in the restaurant business as a server and I have always had the most patience for servers because of this, I know that a lot of what happens is not their fault. But this was ridiculous. 1 hour and 45 minutes later we left hungry and agitated. In that entire time the server never came to our table and updated us, we had to track her down every time. In that entire time the manager never came out and apologized to us. And in the end they did not even offer any compensation for what had happened and expected us to pay.

There is no excuse for a restaurant that can't handle a lunch rush of 20 people.

Obviously I will never be dining at Sign of the...

Food is honestly ridiculously overpriced for the quality you get. Wife and I ordered two Four Spice Burgers ($20 each) and when they arrived we thought "is this for real?" The burger looks like the same ones we got in public school cafeteria back in middle school. Basic flat sesame seed potato bun, pre-frozen beef patty, four slices of chorizo, and a slice of cheese. The order came with fries, which were super thin and cooked in old oil. My wife can tell when oil is old because her tongue swells. Will say, the cheese was good, but that was the only highlight of our dinner. Service slouched when we didn't order alcohol, just two burgers. The restaurant was empty, just a few tables used, and some people at the bar. No justifiable reason for poor service when there were three waiters are 10 tables occupied on a Tuesday evening.

Im sad to say I should have gone to Bareburger to have a proper burger (and risk food poisoning again from that place) over eating the burger from Sign of the Whale again. A Burger is the sole standard for the skill and quality of a restaurant. If you can't make a tasty burger, you don't belong in this industry. I dare the owner to have a undercover customer order a burger and then for the owner to eat and attempt to enjoy it...Let me know if you enjoy it.

And my intel says the Owner of this place does not even eat from his own restaurant and goes next door to Patisserie to get salads, because he is sick of his own restaurant's food. And Patisserie is known for cockroaches and health code violations so thats that.

Is it really hard to make decent food? This place makes a killing on Alcohol already; wouldn't you think the owner would care a bit more about food quality? Maybe its just the area, full of alcoholics who don't care about food quality when they are drinking their lives away, but some people are looking for good quality food at fair prices...I guess we can't...