Assembly American Brasserie — Restaurant in Toledo

My fiancé and I thought, let’s try the new spot downtown. To which we made reservations as we expected there to be a long wait because of all the events happening downtown. We walk in roughly 5 minutes prior to our reservation, and it takes the host about 10 minutes to even come to the front desk to greet us. There were only about 2 tables seated and being served so we were confused as to why the wait was so long. Upon getting seated finally, our server gave us the run down on the drink menu. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to put in our appetizer and drink order right away because our server assumed that we needed more time which was no problem. The problem lies in the fact that our appetizer came out almost the same time as our dinner. The appetizer was basically a loaf of bread that was too hard to cut with our butter knives. Dinner however was not very good. She ordered the 12 hour brined chicken and I had the beef bourguignon. The chicken was beyond dry and was too tough to even cut with the sharper knife. The beef bourguignon was pretty decent and the major drawback was that the carrots were barely cooked and cold despite the steaming hot plate, which led me to believe it was microwaved. Also which I failed to mention took at least 30 mins to be brought to the table. In our opinion, it was way over priced for the lack of quality and the lack of attention we felt. We more than likely won’t be back and feel like we wasted a good date night on paying extra to be...

This restaurant is like the "before" on an episode of "Hell's Kitchen". We had reservations but were late, and were directed to sit at the bar until another table opened up in 10-15 minutes. The bartender was very friendly, and we ordered a bread appetizer. 25 minutes later, the appetizer had not come, and no one had come to let us know about a table, either, so I went to the person at the front and asked again. After standing there for over 5 minutes as several employees passed by, another person came and told us - very impatiently - that there would be no tables for the next 45 minutes. About 1/4th of the tables in the restaurant were unoccupied.

So we left. My wife told me that while I was trying to find out what was going on, she had overheard employees saying that the kitchen was backed up and another conversation about the restaurant running out of several items.

I realize that they just opened, so I don't want to ding them on opening hiccups, or on the bartenders, who were very nice people. I do want to ding them on the attitude from several other employees that we were a nuisance. Maybe that flies in downtown Chicago or Manhattan, but Toledo, Ohio? Not worth it.

EDIT: The response from the manager below appears to have been written by AI, or at least cut-and-pasted from several other responses. Not...

I’m usually not a reviewer but I just wanted to share some of my experience from my recent visit to American Brasserie. Me and my fiancé went on Valentines Day and I DREAD restuarants on Valentines Day but the entire experience was PERFECT!!! The wait wasn’t too long so we were already off to a good start. Sometimes I feel like the wait times can be purposely deceiving on Valentines Day to get more customers but not only was the wait reasonable, it was truthful! The atmosphere is awesome, I love how open it was it wasn’t stuffy. Nowadays restaurants will have 500 tables and you’re basically sitting in another persons lap. The food was awesome as well, the pork belly was PERFECT. I got the Beef Bourguignon which I’ve only my grandmothers but this was a close second to hers. My fiancé said his steak frites were also good, the steak was cooked at exact temperature. I’m not a big drinker but on Valentine’s Day why not so I got the Ruby—soooo good lol. Not too strong and also not watered down. I’ll definitely be back again. The service we received was so genuine and the staff was so inviting and warm and personable! I think the managers name was Erica (she introduced herself I have terrible memory lol). She took care of us! Good service starts at the head and I could tell. Thank you very much for the...