We just expected a little more

The wife and I decided to try a new restaurant in Rolesville, Fitzgerald's Seafood. The place is always hopping on a Friday night, so it seemed a reasonable guess that it would be worth our while. It was not.

I imagine there must be rational explanations as to why so many folks like the place, and since this blog isn't about restaurant review I won't go into that here. What I will mention briefly is that we did not get great service.  The impression we got was that the service you will get, may well depend upon whether you are well-known by the old timers. Come to think of it, when we were first seated we noted that all of the other patrons were white haired 60+ folks and their 40+ kids. The side-long glances from neighboring tables did not make us feel more welcome, and while this isn't exactly the fault of the owners one can always expect the same kind of fish to follow certain kinds of bait.

But it was the gruff and harried waitress that I felt it really important to comment on. The younger, dark haired ladies sitting nearby were largely ignored by her, as were we after the order was taken. Someone else delivered our order, and my drink was omitted. No one ever returned to ask us how the meal was, or if there was any way that we could be served. We waited patiently, enjoying our company and trying to catch the eye of the waitress with our ticket, then finally went to the cash register to end the experience. Another waitress got us a take-out box for over half of our meal left over, which we probably should have just refused.

All in all, the staff is not so much overworked as out of shape and unable to keep up given the organization. But that is no excuse for treating new customers like they don't exist.  We left a small tip, a very small tip, to show our dissatisfaction.