Phoenician — Restaurant in Town of New Hartford

Sad review to write- this is a local staple. I just hope that others might be able to avoid a similarly lousy experience. Visited for the very first time a week and a half ago on a Wednesday. It was midday as I recall. Upon arrival we noticed there were very few vehicles in the parking lot. We chalked that up to time of day (it was half past 2). Walked in and were promptly met by the hostess (who happened to be our waitress as well). She pitched the lunch buffet. My wife and I are buffet aficionados so this was an easy sell. She led us to our table, took our drink order and departed, returning less than a minute later. This was the last time she visited our table. No beverage refills offered, no asking after our impression of the meal. She literally never returned. The buffet was a travesty. The selections were so thoroughly depleted that it shouldn’t have been offered as an option. What remained was lukewarm at best. The saddest thing about the experience was that the FLAVOR of the old, dry food was EXCELLENT. What really, really bothered us was that a party of three that arrived about 5 mins before we departed were met by the co-owner of the establishment. She walked them to the buffet to determine whether the scant offerings were acceptable to them. And when they expressed some (understandable) reservations, said owner offered to have fresh food put out. Unbelievable. Cute place, but will NEVER return. It’s clearly a who-you-know type of restaurant and that doesn’t fly with me. The aloof, absentee waitress who didn’t bother returning to our table after the initial seating cashed us out. Did she ask how the meal was? Nope. Surely she knew the answer to the question and decided to dodge the issue. Mind you, she was the one who pushed the buffet in the first place....

The service was very questionable. Me and my girlfriend both got 2 entrees. The server never checked on us. Customers were lined up at the front desk constantly waiting for someone to help them with to go orders or to cash out, but front desk people were always just talking to people rather than helping paying customers. My beef dish was phenomenal, but my girlfriend's fish was poorly seasoned and overcooked. Our drinks were never refilled, we asked for napkins and never received them and no one asked how our food was the entire time we were sitting. When it came time to leave we waited for over 25 minutes waiting for someone to bring us a check or for a waitress to walk by so we could ask for one. We ended up having to go to the front desk just to leave because NO ONE came to our table. If this is a restaurant that does not provide the check at the table and expects you to to to the front desk, that is not communicated by signage or by the employees. The experience seems like it could be phenomenal but we definitely felt as though we were not welcome or wanted. Would not personally return after this experience, we felt absolutely neglected and as though the employees wanted us to leave as soon...

I travel a lot and always search out Mediterranean restaurants. I always look for something unique to order from the menu. We ordered lentil soup to start and we're brought out a basket of cold, not fresh, flatbread. Warm flatbread on a cold night would have been better. The soup lacked herbs and spices. It just didn't have much besides broth and lentils. For my entree I ordered cabbage rolls. Again very bland. The entree was four large cabbage rolls in a tomato sauce but they just lacked flavor. Very uninteresting. We ordered mint tea because it was a chilly night. Our server came back and said all the head was green tea. Fine but then it came back decaffeinated. The chemistry used to decaffeinate coffee or tea is worse for you than the tea.

The staff was overwhelmed with the phone orders. Our service was very slow because they were so busy with customer pickups. There were two other tables in the restaurant. Lebanese food is much more interesting than what they...