Saffron — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

About a month ago we were at the VA beach wanted to enjoy nice IndianPakistsni food. Used Yelp and google found Saffron to be highly rated so we wanted to try it out.

I called to see if we needed reservation for party of 5 they said no. Restaurant hours are until 10PM but the person on the phone said if you want to eat here be sure to be here by 9:30 I replied we will be there by 9. Absolutely beautiful restaurant I noticed as soon as we walked in. I told my brother looks great am sure food and service will be great as well. We were seated promptly... they didn't take reservation but had a table ready with menus!!! What a plus!!!!

I was craving cognac my server didn't know what they had so I went to the bar with him. I selected one out of two my Server was going to pour it into a shot glass I was like .... it's cognac don't you have proper glass? He said most Indian restaurants serve like this. I canceled my order instead ordered double scotch on the rocks. Right then my server had attitudes and I felt like as if he didn't even want to serve us.

I brought my drink from the bar rest of the table placed order with him but never got their drinks. Rest of the tables without drinks he asked if we were ready to order. He wasn't rude but he was very DRY, no smile and good at ignoring us.

My appetizer arrived but drinks never made it to the table. After entrees arrived that's when he brought drinks and said "these sodas are free". No apology for forgetting instead made us feel like as if he did us a favor. We were still eating dinner at 9:59 they turned up lights to max. In the middle of our dinner server asked if we wanted dessert and take our dinner with us. Noticed we are being pushed out I asked for 3 boxes... he didn't even clean our table and dropped check.

I gently made comments to our server saying restaurant is nicely decorated and asked why type of crowd do you target. He said local and went to to tell us "Desi" meaning Indian Pakistani people are the worst. Funny he is from similar background so are we yet he is bad mouthing all of us. He went on to volunteer about some "Desi" never had issues here went home and wrote a bad review and the owners were not happy.

I won't put severs name here but tell you what Mr...place looks great, good location, food is good but you ruined our evening. You were dry, short, insulting, pushy and careless. We still tipped you not because you were good because we know tops normally are shared with bus staff, bartenders and so on. If food is good and servers are insulting I will...

Update: 5/26/24 I decided to give Saffron another chance. I'm glad I did! A friend and I celebrated a joint birthday dinner at Saffron this evening. I ordered the Fish Tikka again and requested less onions and peppers and more vegetables, slivers of the carrots if adding broccoli florets would cost extra. The waitress came back to our table and stated that the manager said there would be a charge for adding broccoli, but the waitress would add a note to my order and see what would happen. Happily, the cook added the broccoli and personally brought it to our table. The entree was beautiful, with chunks of salmon and broccoli and tasted delicious!

Previous post: Saffron has been my go to restaurant for Indian cuisine for a number of years. That may change. I dined here on Wednesday 4/17/24 and ordered the Fish Tikka. The food arrived sizzling, which I love, the salmon was in large chunks, and the sauce was spicy, as requested. My disappointment was in the lack of vegetables in the dish. There were a few slivers of carrots and three very small broccoli florets. Onions dominated the dish with green peppers. Previously, carrots and other vegetables were plentiful. I returned to Saffron on 4/20/24 with three friends. I ordered the Fish Tikka again as did two of my friends. Our Fish Tikka was hot but not sizzling on the plate as in the past. We each had two miniscule broccoli florets, a sliver or two of carrots, a few green pepper slices, and many onions. I asked our server how much it would cost to add more broccoli. After checking, she returned to our table and said $4. I declined. I asked for more rice after asking for a container for my leftovers. The server responded that extra rice wasn't available for take out orders. I then requested more rice for our table. The server returned with a small bowl of rice. I may think twice about...

My friends and I were really looking forward to dining here, especially since it was Virginia Beach restaurant week and Saffron was a featured establishment, but the level of customer service we received was subpar to say the least. We were a party of 6 and arrived at 9:00pm there wasn’t a lot of people inside so we figured getting seated would be no issue, an employee told us we would be seated shortly. 10 mins had gone by as we stood at the door waiting and no one assisted us. Another employee came by and was surprised we were still standing at the door and said he will get a “manager”. After a few more minutes we had someone assist us. If this man was the “manager” he did nothing to make the situation right, he didn’t apologize or at least empathize at the fact we were getting bad service in his restaurant , he sat us at a table with a reserved card on it, which meant he took another’s guest table away, we waited another 10mins for menus, we didn’t have silverware, and we had to nearly beg for water. He kept walking past the table saying “I’ll be right with you” the restaurant was not busy. We would have understood if he had told us he was short staffed, or trying to handle another party, or even if we came in without a reservation (which was not expressed at any moment) but he completely blew us off like we were beneath him. We grew tired of the disrespect and started to get up and leave. As we were leaving he came by again, and when we expressed that we were not getting any service he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. I wish I had gotten his name, but again lack of customer service experience suggested he didn’t attest to that skill set. If anyone decides to eat at this location I hope you have a better experience than my...