Grand Lux Cafe
600 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 276-2500
I love coming here for special occasions, the decor, food and service have always met my expectations. However, my last visit wasn't award winning. The hubs and I decided to indulge ourselves on a late Sunday evening, we didn't think the restaurant would be busy because of the time but we were in for a surprise. I walked up to the host stand and asked for table for two. The hostess politely replied, it will be a 20-30 minute wait. Really? It's 10:00 on a Sunday don't people have work tomorrow? (I thought to myself), OK, I decided to wait it out by the bar and review the menu so once we got sat we could order right away. When the pager lit up and started vibrating, I knew it was our time. We followed the host towards our table but were stopped suddenly "I'm sorry, the table was going to seat you at is not clean, please wait here". After a few moments of standing in the middle of the dining room, we were finally sat. Under normal circumstances this is not a huge deal, however there was a mis-communication between the host stand and back waiters. This table was obviously not ready to be sat, so why make your guests feel awkward?
Once our server greeted us, we ordered three small bites right off the bat: crispy calamari, duck triangles and crispy fish tacos. This was the first time in history that ALL of the dishes that hit the table were terrible. The calamari was heavily battered (served without a lemon), the tortillas for the "crispy" tacos were soggy and cold and the duck triangles might as well have been called the mushroom triangles because that's all I tasted. When I called a manager over to give him my honest feedback, he looked at me with fear in his eyes and whisked our plates away. Wow, what a disappointment, he could have said a few more words than "Oops, I'm sorry about that" and asked me specific questions about what I didn't like and thank me for giving him constructive criticism. There are too many people who dine out, have a horrible experience and never return. The manager should not have taken my words personally, guest complaints can actually be turned into something positive. That way the proper people will be notified of the problem and it can get fixed.
Although our appetizers weren't that good, our braised short ribs and chicken royal were the bomb and I will definitely be back!
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