After attending the flower show today at the Attleboro Art Museum, we went to Morin's for lunch; arrived shortly after 12 noon. Three adult women and two well-behaved children, ages 5 and 8.
So much to tell! There was one couple in line ahead of us waiting to be seated in the lower level; about five minutes passed before a 'hostess' was snagged by one of the upper level servers. A table was cleared and we sat down. Another 5 minutes until someone--the hostess? came over, unsmiling, without greeting, and asked: "Do you want something to drink?".
We replied, "Can we have menus?".
'Hostess': "Oh, sure." Unsmiling.
Returned at a leisurely place and dealt us our menus without a word and left.
They were the breakfast menus.
After a while the other young woman, the one we think was supposed to be our waitress, came over and we asked her for lunch menus.
"Oh, sure".
She then went to another nearby table and took their order before returning to us with the luncheon menus.
The mother of the children looked for children's choices on the regular menu but there were none, so she asked the waitress if she had a kid's menu.
Reply: "Yup". Off she went and came back with the kid's menus. Apparently she hadn't noticed that we had kids with us.
After a long wait, during which people who were seated after us were served their meals, we were served. The food looked good. I had ordered one of their specials, the lamb dinner, but we had been given only forks, no knives, so I had to wait for the 'hostess' to drift near to ask her for a knife. I felt like a fussbudget. The lamb was dry and rimmed with gristle. The green beans were tired looking. The french fries were okay.
One of my daughters had ordered the 'soup with sandwich' special. She asked for the red chowder. She was served the white chowder. She told the waitress "Excuse me, I asked for the red chowder".
Reply, said with a straight face: "We are out of the red chowder."
We were blown away! But my daughter asked for the French onion soup instead. The waitress left the white chowder in the middle of the table, and returned with the onion soup much later, as we were finishing our meals. There was no cheese on top...thought French onion always came with it...only a thin layer of oil.
To someone's credit, she was not charged for her meal, although no one spoke to us about it. In fact, from beginning to end, no one spoke to us unless we asked a question. Finally, meal over and no waitress in sight, I brought the check up to the cash register, where a passing waitress told me: "You don't pay here. You have to pay your waitress. It says so right here". Points to bottom of check, which I have foolishly not read. Back to lower level. No waitress. Go over to hostess, who tells me"You have to pay your waitress". I stare at her. "She will be with you shortly". Then she went and fetched the waitress out of the kitchen. I paid her and waited for the change.
I have eaten in many, many restaurants, and was a waitress myself once, as was my mother. Our experience at Morin's was the worst I've ever had.
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