This has always been a favorite of ours for dinner before an event at Gammage, so this isn't the first time we have been here, but it will be the last. Seriously. While I have never been overly impressed with House of Tricks, my girlfriend has, and the atmosphere is pretty nice. For me, the food has always been just ok, not bad, but not anything special in this city of really good restaurants. The service in the past has always been pretty good, but Saturday night was a whole different story from the bottom to the top. We had reservations for 5:15 for a 7:30 show at Gammage. Plenty of time, right? Well, it wasn't. We showed up 5:15 and were seated about 5:30. Crowded? Not really. We spied about a half dozen empty tables. There was a line at the hostess station, and it was obvious it was a first night of work for someone, or maybe a couple of their first nights. It took almost 5 minutes for them to seat parties even though there were a lot of empty tables. So, about 10 minutes later, a young woman approached us and said she was not our server, but that she would bring us some water. She asked if we were going to Gammage, and we said yes. The server would be told this, we were assured. About 5:45 we ordered a bottle of wine when our water arrived. It showed up about 5:55. Upon opening the wine, a server knocked my glass of water into my lap. Really, not that big of a deal at the time, as I was wearing black pants, and accidents happen. Our actual server finally showed up, and we told her we were now in a bit of a hurry, since it was now about 6:00. No problem. We ordered three Caesar salads and a bowl of soup, and our entrees. By the time the salads arrived at 6:20, we knew we might be in trouble on time, but the server told us that the kitchen knew that we needed to leave soon for the play. 5:50 soon rolled around, and we knew there was no way for us to stay and eat. When we informed the server, she said our meals still weren't ready anyway. She kept blaming the kitchen. The manager (?) apologized, and said he would comp the salads and cup of soup. Big of him. The wine was a $42 bottle of wine they paid $20 for. He should have comped it, too. Really, we weren't looking for anything free here, but he made sure that we weren't ever coming back, and he could have prevented that by making a gesture for the water in my lap and the overall bad service. Not only have they lost our patronage, but we brought friends along from out of town who come into town for events at Gammage, and their feelings were the same. To be honest, there are just way too many good restaurants in town to be treated this way and just to be told they were sorry. This place has a great atmosphere and decent food. That's not enough anymore in this day and age. Someone mentioned in another review that House of Tricks seems to be having some issues with service around this time-frame. It is unfortunate that it happens to anyone, but for us its unacceptable.
Choose the sentiment of this review?
--negative; --positive;
negative