J. Alexander's Restaurant — Restaurant in West Bloomfield Township

This is one of my wife's favorite restaurants. We've gone to dinner at this location on her birthday for the past five years. On her birthday last Friday, our experience was unpleasant and now we'll probably never return. It started with the hostesses, who for some reason seemed annoyed with us and only acknowledged us after we had been standing there looking at them for what felt like an inordinate amount of time.

The person who sat us was very polite, but despite it being 5:15 and the restaurant not yet being crowded, she put us in a booth in the corner underneath the POS system, which everyone knows is probably the worst table in the house. All night I had to avoid making eye contact with the waiters just above and in front of us. We had the pleasure of listening to their problems and what the manager had to say and all that good stuff. Felt like we were being observed by scientists.

We waited for about ten or fifteen minutes without anyone coming by our table. Eventually we stopped someone to ask them who our waiter was. The party that walked in right in front of us, who were seated in the center of the main dining room, had their drinks. It's kind of amazing that we were seated next to where all staff congregates yet nobody noticed that we didn't have a server. The server we stopped, Marissa, was very polite. She apologized and told us she'd find out who our server was.

We never really found out who our server was. Marissa took our orders, but our food was brought out by three different people. Our entrees were brought out before we were done with the appetizers. Then as we were eating our entrees, a fourth person swung by, set the bill on the table, tapped her fingers on the bill, and walked off without saying anything. I guess they just assumed we were done. And get this weirdness - the bill wasn't in a leather envelope; just a bare slip of paper on the table.

Marissa came back and we paid and she apologized again. She was cool. No problems with her. Everyone else seemed to be living in another dimension and actually thought they were working at a five star restaurant and not just some chain but whatever.

I guess we didn't fit the profile of "desired J. Alexander's customer," whatever that is. This place just gives me...

Apparently "a pleasant dining experience, is NOT on the menu at J. Alexanders." I visited the location in West Bloomfield Michigan (an affluent area) with my 89-year-old grandmother for my birthday. Two booths down, there was a family with a crying 12-18-month-old. As a parent, I completely understand childhood, but allowing a baby to continue to cry while other people are trying to enjoy their dinner is deplorable. I gave it some time to allow the family to calm their child down, but they just ignored her crying. It was a start-and-stop the whole time. When I brought it up with one of the servers walking by, her response was, "wha'chya want me do about it." If the server felt that comfortable talking to a guest like that, clearly the manager allows this type of behavior and won't do anything either. Maybe if the restaurant had a dress code policy that didn't serve people wearing sweatshorts, sandals, and baseball caps, this could have been avoided.

As for my actual dinner, I'm STILL waiting for my calamari appetizer. The main dishes were delivered and the server came by twice to check up on us and did not even realize that we never got our calamari. In the end when the check arrived (it wasn't on the bill), I pointed it out to her, and the server was shocked. If she was so certain that she put the order in, she should have seen that we never got the order. Clearly, J. Alexanders doesn't care about a pleasant dining experience.

I assumed J. Alexanders tried to brand themselves as an upscale restaurant, being in West Bloomfield of all places, but that failed miserably! The only difference between J. Alexanders and all the other "nice" restaurants in the ghetto is that the ones in Detroit charge a cover and have automatic gratuity because they know they won't provide good service and no one tips either. This was the ultimate...

UPDATE (response to the restaurants reply): I will consider coming back. I know things happpen, but it is important for workers to treat each guest equally. Will you consider comping an item or two for the inconvenience my family dealt with

Server (forgot her name but might have started with a K) literally did not check up on us at all, we had to keep grabbing her attention when we needed something. Even that, she barely cared or payed attention to us. She would keep walking past our table, not acknowledging us.

And when she brought out the bill at the end, she came back 2 minutes later and just stood at our table waiting on the check, didn’t say anything, just a “Hi” and just stood their waiting on us to give the check to her.

I showed her pics of the food I wanted to make sure it would come like that. She said it would, and it literally did not. Cypress salad came with no avocado when we double checked with our server, and was also bland.

I asked for smashed loaded potatoes with toppings on top, and I shower her a picture of it just to make sure. She said that’s how it would come, and all I got were plain and bland mashed potatoes that were not hot at all. Another member in my family got ribs and a loaded baked potato, and both were also not hot. We waited a long time for our food to come out, and had to send those items back to be fixed.

Our food was cold, bland, did not come correctly even when I shower pictures, took a while to make it to our table, yet not one item was taken of our bill for the inconvenience

Our family is not usually ones to complain, but our experience and service did not meet our expectations. I would have liked better attention from our server, and better honesty when a customer is asking questions about certain dishes to...