LiLLiES Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Washington

My husband and I had high hopes for this little hole in the wall in NW DC. We made a brunch reservation for around 12pm on a Sunday before planning to head to the zoo. Upon arriving, we were greeted by an elderly woman who took our name and number of guests, and we told her we had a reservation. She quickly disappeared into the restaurant. Suddenly, two other servers told us to leave and that we would not be seated. They shooed us away and said we had to leave. We were stunned! We couldn’t even get out that we had a reservation! The elderly woman (now swaying and holding a glass of champagne) and another hostess came out of the restaurant. The elderly woman said “they have a reservation, but I don’t work here I just know the owners” and sauntered off. The young hostess said “they have a reservation they can be seated. So sorry we just have a large party inside today so that’s the hold up.” Finally, we were escorted by one of the servers who originally told us to leave into the restaurant but bizarrely were taken to a side room that didn’t even have the lights on! The waitress flipped on the lights in a makeshift basement with chairs stacked up in the corner and dusty glasses covering the table. After seating us, several minutes went by and no one came to give us water, check on us, say “I’ll be right with you,” nothing. We quickly realized this place was not worth our business and left (especially when the menu posted outside the restaurant did not match the menu we were given and the $20+ price tag for a salad!)

Large parties and busy days happen in the service industry. But it speaks volumes that LiLLiES has been established in DC for almost 15 years and they do not know how to handle a large party/event in their restaurant (i.e., close the restaurant for a few hours, close the restaurant for the entire day for a special event, or modify the times and dates that guests can reserve on OpenTable). If guests have a reservation they should not be turned away or left unattended. Period.

Google, where is the zero...

I rarely write bad reviews. But, this one annoyed me. I read a few reviews and it is clear that this place gets a lot of business from the Zoo traffic. That was us. My wife and I were there with our Granddaughter on Sunday during Memorial Day Weekend. The zoo was packed. So, we had to park about a quarter mile away. As we walked up the hill to the zoo, we passed Lillies and it looked like a nice place for dinner. A little while longer and there was a guy handing out fliers for Lillies. We did not take one because we were not sure what the day would bring with a 1st Grader in tow. After the zoo, we saw the same guy handing out the fliers. This time we took one. It had a 10% off coupon. We thought, well, that is nice. However, when we got to the restaurant, we waited for several minutes before a young lady came out. She said they were full. I looked around and there were probably 15 open tables. I was surprised and she said they have reservations. This was about 4:30 on a Sunday. I guess that is possible. But, it was also the snippy attitude of the hostess that set me off. As for the management, why would you have an employee standing out front trying to get people to come to the restaurant and then when they get there, you turn them away. That is just bad business and brings upset customers for no reason. We ended up going across the street to a nice pizza place that was very friendly and took...

The atmosphere is lovely, and the staff are friendly and accomodating. However, as far as the food is concerned for their dinner menu, we left feeling very disappointed and dissatisfied. The food is overpriced, the portions are quite small, and the quality is very poor. $25 for a small chicken parmesan cutlet, which included soggy pasta in a weak marinara that I just couldn't finish, and unseasoned vegetables. My husband got a $28 NY strip steak dish with cold roasted potatoes and a tough, over cooked steak that needed to be coated in its thick layer of (pretty tasty) steak sauce to finish. We also had some salads, which were good, but not enough so to redeem the poor entrees. $70+ later and we joked we were just happy to walk the food off exploring DC, and were glad we got small portions since we had less to try and eat there. We even wound up coming across the Adams Morgan district about a 20ish minute walk away later and wished we had waited to eat, since that area is lined with delicious looking restaurant after restaurant with happy looking patrons. We opted later in the night to get a small pizza and took it to our room. Much better decision.

We had been so excited to get dinner after a long day of walking and seeing the exhibits at the National Zoo and only had one night in the city to spend together, and this was our nice meal out. Definitely do yourself a favor...