Chez Billy Sud — Restaurant in Washington

I don’t know if it was just an off night, but our experience was bad top to bottom. This might be because of COVID, and the fact that there is a staffing shortage everywhere (paying staff better, providing hazard pay and health insurance would go a long way towards alleviating this). But even still, this was bad service all around. I ordered a salad and soup because I wasn’t super hungry, and my partner order an entree. The waiter specifically asked if it should come out in any particular order. I asked for the salad first, expecting that the soup would come out with his entree. Both soup and salad came out at the same time, and he never got his meal. Not only that, but the salad was literally a head of lettuce cut in half. I know restaurants think this is sophisticated, but it’s not, it’s lazy and requires the guest to do the work. But whatever, if you’re going to do it, you better make sure that lettuce is in good shape. Ours was not. It was wilted, soggy, and warm, almost hot, like it had been sitting under the heat lamps for a while. It was gross. Nevertheless, we ate it, and about 30 minutes later, our waiter came back to apologize that the main dish hadn’t come out, and that it he had to send the order in again. At that point we said that it’s not worth it, we were pretty much done. He offered us a dessert as compensation and brought us the menu to take a look. We never actually put an order in, we just got something brought to our table (ok, cool! It was what we we’re going to order anyways). Then we got the check, and our “comp” dessert, that we never actually ordered, was on the bill. It’s a weird, uncomfortable spot to be in to ask for that to be taken off the check. Other than asking about this one thing, we didn’t complain. Our waiter was clearly trying hard, and was underwater due to the place being understaffed. This bad review is more about management than the waiter. If your place doesn’t have enough staff to handle a full house, then don’t seat a full house. Let your staff take on what’s manageable. This is still a pandemic. They are still risking their lives. Don’t make it worse by giving them more work than they can handle. If you do, you risk bad service, bad reviews, and lost customers. We probably won’t go back unless it’s to have a glass of wine. Oh! And petty, I know, but I ordered the wine. I’m a woman, though, so the guy showed it to my partner instead, because he’s the man. So we may not even go back for the wine. Yeah, train sexism out of...

Now I'm usually not one to post comments but this one really surprised me. I came to this place for a quick dinner and was seated by the hostess. I could see several empty tables, so I figured I would be done in time for what I had to do that evening.  After the server brought my drink she left me seated there without taking my order for over 15 mins. The whole time I see her going past me serving other tables. Finally when it was nearing the 20 mins mark I got up and walked over to the doorway and met her on her way to serve the next table some drinks. When I told her I was ready and had wondered if she forgot about me, she told me she had other things to do but she was glad I reminded her. Wow! I thought   what great service for a high end restaurant. No 'I'm sorry' no nothing. I then ordered the fries and Salmon and told her I could have the fries first while I waited on the fish. Fries came overdone, but I didn't complain. I started nibbling and chatted on the phone while I waited, this time, for almost 30 mins!!! Just when I thought I was about to lose it, the server casually comes by and asks if I was ready for the fish!!!! I just couldn't believe my ears! I asked her what she thought I was waiting for and of course she had a defensive reply claiming she thought I wasn't ready for it. I think by that point she could see I was very angry and hastily walked away promising my meal will be ready in 3 mins. Salmon was finally served, by this time, it's been over an hour since I sat down. She tried to offer what seemed like a forced apology as she served the meal, but a little too late for that by this time.  As the only black woman seated among the guests at that time, I couldn't help but wonder if I just got racially profiled... Needless to say, I am not coming back to this place. It definitely was not a dinner nor a service worth...

Had a really bad experience, and we wanted to like it. Got there at the time of reservation, but we were told to go to the bar next door where we were completely forgotten about. The bartender went over to inform the hostess, who told him everyone had already been seated, until she saw us and her face dropped, audibly saying “Oh no”. Eventually, we were seated 30-40 minutes after our 8:30 pm reservation at 9-9:05 pm. Which I would have been completely fine with if the kitchen wasn’t closing at that same time. The entire dinner was defined by that.

From the moment we sat down we were rushed. Didn’t have time to talk to a waiter as the host told us if we didn’t order with him we wouldn’t be getting food. We asked for more bread about 8-9 minutes after receiving one of the appetizers. We were told there was none left, but they did find some cold raisin bread for us. An hour into our dinner there were already chairs going up around us, and a steady stream of employees in street clothes leaving. It felt like we were imposing despite being forgotten. But the worst part was we came to celebrate a birthday, and no effort was made to honor the birthday guest in any way other than the cordial “Oh, happy birthday.” Our waiter Torrence was great, but that was about all that we liked. Very disappointing otherwise. The bartender who helped us gave us a couple of glasses of Prosecco for being made to wait so long, but we found out at the end of our meal that our situation wasn’t communicated to our waiter whatsoever. So there’s no communication between the front of the house and the back of the house, and the staff seemed visibly annoyed that we were there, despite us arriving exactly when our reservation was. The food was decent, but I regret the night altogether. The experience definitely wasn't worth...