Busboys and Poets — Restaurant in Washington

This is the worst Busboys in the city, by far. I went here yesterday and had the upmost disrespect, rude, and nasty service from everyone in the restaurant EXCEPT the host.

First, the manager walks by my table of 2 at least 3 times and does not greet us. It takes ~8 mins for our server to speak to us & he doesn’t introduce himself, welcome us in, nothing. Instead he rudely TELLS us to chug our drinks or throw them out as no outside drinks are allowed in. While I understand not allowing outside drinks, there is a way to speak to someone. He could’ve said “I understand it looks like you just got those drinks, but unfortunately we don’t allow them in here. I’m going to have to kindly ask you to try and quickly finish them or throw them out.” Easy. And as a grown man, you shouldnt need someone to tell you how to speak to someone, especially a paying customer, respectfully.

After this, the server leaves without asking if we want to order a replacement drink and takes an additional 7+ minutes to bring us water. At this moment, I contemplated leaving and should have. When we FINALLY were able to order and get our food, which the manager drops off, she doesnt say hello, she doesn’t speak, she just drops it off. More importantly, she doesnt ask if we need anything else — I did. I wasnt able to eat my food because I didn’t have the condiments I wanted.

As my food is getting cold, I continually try to get my server’s attention. However, his back is to us as he is just chatting with the bartender. Mind you, it’s not busy at all, so this was not an issue of having too many tables to manage or being short staffed. Out of frustration, I finally try to ask a different server. I make eye contact with her and she intentionally walks the other way. Cool. Now, I get up to go near the kitchen to get SOMEONE to help me. The same server who I made eye contact with comes out and I politely say excuse me and she says, “what”. Again, the rudest service ever. After I ask for the condiments she says I need to ask my server as she’s walking away.

I go back to my table and wave my server down. I ask him for the condiments and he doesnt come back for another ~10 minutes. To my surprise, I see him laughing with coworkers and talking to the bartender again. At this point, as anyone can asssume, its been 20 minutes since my food was dropped off and it’s cold. I would give this place negative 5 stars if I could.

I’ve never been treated so poorly by an entire establishment in my life. It was also extremely embarrassing because it was so clear to other patrons how I was being treated from the minute me and my friend entered. I will never be back here and I am committed to ensuring that anyone who even considers going here, or any Busboys, is steered the...

Update 10/2024: I tried this place again after numeral recommendations and it stays where I left it. Service was ATROCIOUS !!!! If you’re one of the people who don’t want a server coming to your table then this is the perfect place for you. We sat ourselves and things were going alright up until we ordered. It took forever to bring a salad, we ordered 2 meals and waited for 25 minutes before ordering an appetizer and even that salty inedible mess came out before my salad!! We couldn’t even cash out because our server was fooling around and chatting away in front of our face in the corner with his coworkers. When we finally got our food, my friend enjoyed his blackened salmon and my caeser salad with chicken was good, I was given the option for simple grilled or blackened chicken breast and I did simple grilled which the server did warn me they only use salt & pepper but when I said that chicken had no flavor.. not even garlic or onion powder, a little paprika. I took the lemon out of my water and seasoned my chicken with the salt & pepper at the table. I forgot the servers name but he was tall light brown skin with tattoos & my friend said he normally works at bar. When I say ZERO customer service skills. I wanted dessert & asked for a menu which we did get but waited another 15 minutes to tell him what we wanted, while we watched him chat with coworkers. We got visibly impatient enough for his coworker who was average height Lightskin with long locs to notice us & ask if everything was alright which we were fed up and just wanted to cash out, forget dessert we’ll find a place who wants to service us & take our money.

The place is actually nicely decorated once you get past entrance, walls are displaying art and there’s a small hidden gallery. Only reason I’m giving 2 stars is for art.

I’ll buy a hot dog at cart on the corner before I ever think of touching the door handle here !!!!

—————— Original: I went on burger Monday and it was nice for take out , very very busy with people entering & exiting. I ordered at the kiosk and didn’t interact with anything up until I checked if my food was ready and service was decent. I got the vegan black burger and idk if it was completely vegan bc I noticed white sauce on it but the ingredients didn’t say the sandwich came with that white sauce. My food wasn’t cooked all the way and I didn’t want to eY the burger, I had to finish cooking it when I got home. 😭 I kept hearing about this place and I’m glad I tried it out but just thinking about the food from here makes my stomach queasy. I like the buns they used. My fries were good though, they were supposed to be crispy but they friend them soft.

Would NOT recommend for vegans but burger Monday...

EDIT: This location honestly leaves a lot to be desired, and more management/ the manager I expereinced than the food quality. He was not unpleasant, just unhelpful. I placed an order on doordash for nachos as I often do and requested the wet ingredients, aside from queso on the side (in case i needed to reheat at home) and paid for 2 orders of grilled chciken as my added protein. The order arrived without any pico, guac, and sour cream, had maybe a half serving of chicken, and 2 jalapeno slices. The beans and queso were sparce but present. I called the restaurant as soon as I opened the aluminum pan to report the error and asked if the order can be remade and I come pick it up. I got to the location around a half hour or so after calling and requested the manager (turned out to be a young man, maybe in his 30s) as I was instructed to do. He asked if i was there for the sides and I told him the sides weren't the only issue, opened the tray for him to see, and explained all that was wrong and missing. Instead of just remaking the order given the amount of time that passed, he said they will only supply the sides. I had to request extra queso because I would've had to reheat the nachos when i got home because the parts that would've been edible after reheating would've been dry. When the "sides" came out, after a 15-20 minute wait, only the chicken and queso were in the bag. THANKFULLY, the young woman behind the bar, SANDY, came with the extras and saw how terribly made the nachos were and decided to go to the back with the nachos to get the missing sides and see if it will be remade, she came back out with the sides and i confirmed they wouldn't remake it and she took them back to ask the head chef directly (instead of the manager) to remake the nachos for me, which is what a manager should be doing. If it wasn't for Sandy, I wouldn't have ended up with a fully edible meal and would've likely had to purchase chips elsewhere to completely remake the nachos after having to pay for delivery and then still drive to the restaurant to rectify the issue. I've been going to Busboys since they opened their flagship location (went to high school with the founder's kids), so I am very much familiar with the dishes I order, service to be expected (Sandy embodies this), and the atmosphere of the space. This SE location is missing that and it truly boils down to management. Promote Sandy, retrain the manager or reassign to a role better suited to his strengths.

ORIGINAL RATING: 4 STARS..... I mean, it's Busboys. A staple. A good place to go for variety and at least decent food. I've yet to have a meal that wasn't satisfying. Their bread pudding...