The Bistro — Restaurant in Valdosta

We recently moved to Valdosta a few months ago and decided to give this place a try for date night last night and it started out lovely and ended with us going to a different restaurant for dinner.

we arrived just after 6 without a reservation. We typically enjoy a good bar seat and walked straight up to the bar that had no customers at the time. Richard, the bartender greeted us and brought us a delicious lemon drop Martini and beer. he told us about the specials, and then took our order for an appetizer, the baked Vidalia onion dip. He then returned a few minutes later to take our entree order. that was the last time he spoke to us for nearly an hour. people started to pack in fairly quickly at the bar and dining room. after the first 15 minutes, our drinks were empty. I'm not going to lie, the Martini was delicious and I would have ordered probably 2-3 more throughout dinner. had Richard asked. A couple with a 2 year old sat at the end of the bar. he brought them both drinks, toon their ordered, brought refills, and continued to make his wait around the bar to take orders, and fill drinks. We watched people who came into the restaurant after us get their appetizers, entrees, and drink refills. we were not even offered more water. I swear we were staring daggers at this man behind the bar and he avoided eye contact at every turn. Finally after about 45 minutes, he pointed at us, said nothing, and walked away. Then as he was bringing another patron (again. who arrived after us) their appetizers, he said to us "I got you guys, your dip should be up soon." At this point it has been 50 minutes, and my husband and I were hungry, parched and quite irritated. Now I will mention that this place is small, filled in quickly, and was likely understaffed. However, not even a refill offer. No acknowledgement or apology that our appetizer that had still not arrived after nearly an hour had still not come. We decided that frankly we were over the entire experience. I waived the bartender down, and politely said to him "We have been waiting 50 minutes for an appetizer. we would like the check for the drinks we finished and will be leaving". He shook his head in understanding (again, no apologies, not even an "I get it, guys!" no works. just a head shake". He returned a few minutes later with another gentleman. He said to him (again not even addressing us) "they people would like to speak to a manager ". I said immediately, "No, we would just like the check for our drinks please so that we can close out. We have been waiting an hour. We have had empty drinks for 45 minutes. We would like to leave." The manager told us our entrees were almost up. we told him we did not care, we didn't even receive our appetizer. Then I looked right at Richard and said "you didn't even check on us once. you didn't offer a refill, you didn't tell us our food was running long, nothing. and THIS NEXT PART IS WHAT PUT THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN FOR NEVER GOING BACK. Richard replied with sass AND ATTITUDE "Well I'm busy as hell".

So gross. no accountability, no kindness or understanding. nothing. The manager chimed in with "Ill bring your food out right now. I'll buy you a round of drinks. My husband just politely said "No, we would like the check for the drinks we had, this whole experience has been ridiculous."

The manager told us not to worry about the drinks, and we left.

We went two doors down to El Paso and we were greeted, seated and had drinks in 4 minutes. Our food was out quick, fresh and hot and delicious. We were so grateful for a lovely server and her attentivenes.

This date was an anniversary celebration and we had planned to spend a few hundred dollars enjoying ourselves with an upscale dinner and drinks. It's a shame that the Bistro put such a bad taste in our mouths. I had read some negative reviews prior to going and thought "everyone has an off night, these comments were not recent, I'm sure we will have a great time. Well that was wrong and when reviews tell you something is crap, you should...

Nice location and well decorated. The appetizers were great and served quickly. After being the second table in the door at opening, we enjoyed watching everyone else around us eat their amazing meal while we patiently waited. For an hour and a half my wife patiently awaited her drink refill as we also patiently waited our meal. While getting that unexpected rushes happen, an hour and a half is a bit much, especially when you are on a timeline. Since we had 27 minutes to be where we needed to be, we asked another waitress/host to find our waitress (who was MIA for 20 minutes) since we were trying to find her to cancel the remainder of our order. Another 15 minutes goes by and we ask the manager (unbeknownst to us) to help us find our waitress to cancel the order. As we are speaking to said manager, our waitress FINALLY makes her next appearance another with our food… after being told to come see us to cancel our order.

As we explain the issue to the waitress, the manager comes back over. And rather than listening and owning up to what happened, he talked over my wife as she was trying to explain our experience. While repeatedly saying, “I don’t know what to do to make this better” (rather than offer solutions), the manager continued to waste our time even more by refusing to give us our ticket so we can just leave—even after saying we just need to pay the whole bill so that we can leave in time.

Don’t get me wrong, all leaders should have their employees back, but this was clearly negligence. And to have the manager stand extremely close and speak in an angry voice, unwilling to admit that his staff had failed to communicate properly or that they just hid to avoid canceled orders made it seem that he was covering for them.

He asked what can he do to help, I offered to pay for everything that we had received, he was not happy with that, he kept arguing with me that he had not heard anything about this…. Probably due to the errors with his staff or he’s just completely dishonest. In the end we still paid for the full meal price that we were not allowed to eat as we were on a tight timeline.

We tried to explain to them that we could not take the meals since they wouldn’t be safe to eat after sitting in a hot car for 6+ hours, but they did not either comprehend or hear us in their extremely loud establishment. Do not expect to enter this location when the doors open and be out within an 1.5hrs at a minimum, even though you’ll have the opportunity to watch those that enter after you enjoy their lovely meal. FYI: our bill for our uneaten meal was $183.00 at this lovely establishment. We would have happily paid twice over if we received our food at an...

Came to this place on February 22nd for an anniversary dinner with my wife. We are new to the area and wanted to try a local restaurant. We arrived and sat at the bar and was greeted promptly by the bar tender Richard. He went over the specials and took our drink order. After receiving our drinks we placed our order for an appetizer and 2 entrees. Drinks were good but I couldn't tell you how the food was because after placing our order thats when service took a turn.

The place did get busy but it seemed like Richard had no issue accommodating everyone around us at the bar with exceptional customer service even so much as tending to a couple sitting at a table away from the bar. We sat with empty drink glasses for well over 30 minutes while Richard had no issue providing additional rounds of drinks to the couple next to us and everyone else at the bar. No disrespect to the couple next to us but it was apparent that they knew the manager on duty (older gentleman in a black ball cap who came by and chatted them up multiple times) which might explain the exceptional service they received while we were pretty much invisible to the rest of the staff.

50 minutes eventually went by and we still had not gotten our appetizers and drink glasses still remained empty while everyone around was enjoying their's. Eventually we had to stop Richard and ask what was going on with the appetizer he told us it would be up shortly but by then we were ready to pay for the 2 drinks we finished a long time ago and leave.

The manager came over after that and all of sudden they wanted to go above and beyond for us when all we wanted to begin with was adequate service, we never came in expecting special treatment like the managers friends sitting next to us. After I explained to him about the blatant disregard we received from Richard, he then back tracked and said "oh well we are swamped right now" but again it seemed like everyone else in the restaurant was receiving adequate and attentive service. I told him I would like to pay for my 2 drinks and leave. He told us not to worry about that and so we left. Total shame even more so because we were very excited to try the food and drinks while spending a good amount of money on it.

Not sure why this place fell short on standard customer service but to go that long without even so much as a "can I get anything else for you guys" or just general acknowledgement from the bartender is beyond me. They couldn't so much as provide us with the complimentary bread that everyone else got after being seated.

I'd like to return and give them a 2nd chance but I'll leave that up to whoever runs the place. Maybe he or she would care to...