Extremely disappointing!
Just came in from the Thirsty Bernie. We’ve been a couple of times before, and while it has not been "stellar," it also has not been terrible. I assumed that some of the earlier misses were the result of the newness of the venue, and the overall need for the staff to “gel” into a workable machine. Tonight, I had hoped to just stop in for a simple burger and a couple of beers.
However, the experience was so bad; it will likely be my last visit to the TB.
When my buddy and I walked in the door, a very young (she couldn’t have been long out of high school, or maybe just out for the summer) hostess moused her way over to seat us. Poor thing. No personality and she appeared to be scared to death. We sat down and a very young (again, he must have been a classmate of the hostess) waiter came by. We asked about the beer selection and settled on two Hoegaardens.
The beers came in frosted glasses. At first I thought, “Wow. I’ve never seen Hoegaarden served in a frosted glass.” But then I tasted it. There was clearly something wrong with it. It tasted like lemon-flavored Miller Light. Really not good. Maybe it was the frosted glass, maybe it was a problem with the line.
About then, the youngster waiter showed up with a basket of “fresh out of the oven” pretzels. We remembered these from our earlier visits, served with a delicous horseradishy mustard sauce. However, tonight’s pretzels were maybe “fresh out of the oven” sometime last week. They were hard (but not crunchy). They were lukewarm (but not hot). They were dry and unpleasantly chewy and had no horseradish mustard in sight. Plain and simple, these things were not edible.
The youngster came back by to take our order. We asked him to check with the bartender about the beer. “Maybe there’s a problem with the line,” we offered. We also told him that the pretzels were very stale and that we didn’t get the sauce to go with them. He said, (and I kid you not,) “so, do you want me to take them away?” We did want them taken away, but somehow we thought we’d get fresh ones. We were wrong.
Several minutes later, he finally went go over to the bar to talk to the bartender, a perky young lady who seemed to be very busy talking with a co-worker and eating her dinner at the bar. Of course, she was also very busy touching and playing with her hair and face— I never did see her wash her hands. Yuck.
So, even though the youngster spoke with the perky lady at the bar, he didn’t come back to us to report his findings.
Finally, our dinner came. I had ordered a burger with fries, and my buddy had ordered the hot pastrami with fries. Dinner was served in baskets, which made picking up the sandwiches (not to mention trying to cut them in half) nearly impossible. For a minute, I thought we must have made an errant turn into Fuddruckers! But no… the service would have been better there.
We immediately observed that our fries were dramatically different—mine were pale and hot. My buddy’s were very dark brown and barely warm (burnt). The meat on my burger tasted fine, but the bun was stale and not edible. I ended up eating my burger patty like a piece of Salisbury steak—Salisbury steak served on a paper lined basket. However, I fared better than my buddy. The pastrami did NOT taste like pastrami. He convinced me to taste it because he couldn’t believe that they were calling this concoction pastrami. It tasted like beef barbeque. Not unpleasant, but definitely not pastrami. And here’s the kicker. The cheese was melted and had congealed (think about a McDonalds Fish Filet that’s been sitting for a while—except that a fish filet would have been MUCH better). Exactly when WAS the hot pastrami made hot?
The youngster came by to see if we wanted another beer. We asked him for a report on the Hoegaarden line issue, and he informed us that they checked. “It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it”, he reported.
No one representing management came by to check on us or to offer a beer redux, or even just to say that the realized that we weren’t happy. The bartender is too busy with her friends to care. The wait staff needs training. And the hostess needs a clue. We paid. And we left.
We were so excited to see Thirsty Bernie opening in the neighborhood. Now, we just can’t wait for them to close so a real restaurant and bar can open—hopefully one run by people who actually care about the customer experience.
In our earlier visits, the staff was young, but energetic, friendly and competent. Where did they go?
Final kicker … as we left we tried to go through the right-hand door. It was locked. Isn’t it illegal in Virginia to keep an exit locked in a public establishment during open hours?
Management? Are you there??
