They Can’t All Be Winners

Last night’s dinner was less than remarkable. As Jasmine and I were walking downtown checking out the art festival when I spotted “The Palace Restaurant & Saloon”. The sign on the building said that it was “the most historic restaurant in town” (or something to that effect).  I decided we should eat there – the place looks historic and rustic, has a very western feel to it and the menu looked pretty decent.

The ATMOSPHERE

The entrance to “The Palace” has the old west type swinging saloon doors (kinda cool). The saloon on the right is the first thing you’ll see as you walk in. The place reminded me of the saloon in the movie Back to the Future part III or the saloon in the movie “The Quick and the Dead” (with Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman).

I asked the hostess for a reservation for 8:30 PM. She opened the book to today’s date and to my suprise the page was blank. No problem for a reservation at 8:30PM.

That night we arrived right on time. The place was practically empty. So much for needing a reservation. We walked up to the hostess counter and were greeted by someone who looked she was tending bar. She asked us if we wanted 2 for dinner, we said yes, and since it didn’t seem like getting seated was going to be a problem, we didn’t even mention the reservation.

Jasmine and I have been in some sort of restaurant service rut. It seems that lately the service we have been receiveing has been less than stellar and this time was no different. We looked at the menu and decided on what to drink. We waited for a few minutes (5 minutes or so) and nobody arrived.  If a server passed by, they ignored us (probably not our server, I thought). There were a couple of servers running around and all seemed to distracted to look at us.  Finally, as he was rushing to the kitches with dirty dishes, a gentleman blurted out a few words “I’ll be right with you.”

I was okay with that, we had been sitting there a few minutes, but at least we has somebody’s attention.
I watched the guy work for a while. He was busy bussing, getting drinks, and dealing with other tables, but after more than 10 minutes of waiting, we were about ready to leave. I was giving him one more chance to walk by our table, and if he didn’t get down to business with us, we were out of there.
Just then, a table runner/bus boy type kindly saw the frustation on our face and decided to ask us if anybody had taken our drink order.

We got our drinks from this gentleman and were told that they had been comped because of the long wait.
Very soon after that, our server came to life. He came by the table, took our order, and was on his way. From there on out the service was a little slow, but acceptable.

The FOOD

Meh. The salad dressing was about the only thing of mention. The euntrees weren’t horrible, but certainly weren’t the most delicious either. I had there rib eye “Black and Blue” special – blue cheese and cracked peper topped. Sounded great, but in reality was just okay. Jasmine’s prime rib was also mediocre.

The BILL

We did indeed recieve our drinks for free. That said, we still ended up spending over $60. The most expensive meal of the weekend.

The VERDICT

I can only assume that the staffing problem at The Palace was due to poor holiday scheduling. Nevertheless, we didn’t find the food that compelling either. Unless you’re a real cowboy/western fan, wrangle up some chow somewhere else.