Elsa's On The Park

07/21/09

Rude

by spider96 at Citysearch

After buying dinner for my family at Elsa's for several years, my son was home from college and decided to take two friends to Elsa's for wings for the first time own his own......NOT SO....He was told to leave because you have to be 21 to eat after 5:30. This the first I have heard of this....could it be something else? Of course, he was disappointed.

07/18/09

A big disappointment

by Christina123 at Citysearch

My boyfriend and I decided to go out for lunch in the city, we had seen Elsa's menu online and thought it would be a place like the Wicked Hop. When we arrived, it was filled with business men and women - which is expected of the area and day (it was a Monday afternoon). The environment was a bit upscale compared to the Wicked Hop but the menu's are virtually the same. It was odd to serve burgers and sandwiches in a place that looked to be serving steaks and lobster.

We waited a few seconds before being told that we could have a seat at any table that was open. The staff seemed pretty nice at first, but the waitress we received barely gave us a greeting. While we were ordering our food or asked her questions, she just stared and answered in a bored tone. She didn't look pleased or happy. We were EXTREMELY polite to her but it our "please" and "thank you's" were not returned. I noticed during our meal that she had asked every single table near us multiple times how the food was or if she could get the other guests anything else. Not ONCE did she stop by our table to give us the same service.

We also had to wait for quite a while to get our check and when she finally came, she apathetically placed the bill on the table. We felt like we were wasting her time. She was probably thinking in her head that we weren't going to give her a good tip because we weren't as well dressed as the other patrons in the restaurant.

The way we were treated made me incredibly angry. In all honesty, I shouldn't have given her a tip and should have told her why. I'm a manager at a fast-casual restaurant and I make sure I treat my guests with utmost respect no matter what. If our casual attire was such a problem for the restaurant staff, then they should have politely asked us to leave. I find it very ironic that I receive much better service at a Denny's or George Webbs than a place such as Elsa's. I will never go there again and I make sure all of my friends and family know how pretentious the servers are regardless of their homely menu.

It was probably the worst dining experience I've ever had.

• Pros: Ha.
• Cons: Server NOT pleasant, unecessarily pretentious

07/10/09

Won't be patronizing Elsa's again.

by MiddleAgedWhiteGuy at Citysearch

I just got back from having lunch (sort of) at Elsa's. I can say without any reservation that it was quite a disappointment. I walked in and noticed that there weren’t any employees near the door to direct you to a table. Not being comfortable with just sitting anywhere, I had to walk all the way to the back of the restaurant, to speak to a waitress in a closet where the wait-staff got menus, etc. I explained that I wasn’t sure where to sit. She was polite and gave me a choice of a few places to sit. When the waiter came to take my order I knew exactly what I wanted. I made a pretty simple request; a burger medium, with bacon, cheddar, lettuce and raw onions. When I received my food, the waiter asked me if everything looked ok and I said yes. When I picked up the burger, I noticed that bun was soaked in red bloody juice (not even close to a medium burger). Not too big of a deal, because I can enjoy a rare burger, as well. Then I popped the top off the burger and noticed that there was no lettuce either. After a few minutes I was able to get the attention of another member of the staff. I explained that my order was missing the lettuce. She acted like, “Are you serious? You want me to get you lettuce?”, but after a few minutes, she produced a plate with some lettuce. I put the lettuce on and took a bite out of the burger and realized that there was no bacon on it. I had noticed that the cheese was added to the bottom of the burger, so I assumed that’s where the bacon was. I waited several more minutes to get the attention of my waiter to get some bacon, but by the time he came over I decided that I didn’t want to wait for the bacon, as the burger was already getting cold. He asked me if I wanted him to wrap it up for me. I explained to him that I didn’t want it and that my order had been missing lettuce and bacon and that I just wanted the check. When I explained this to him, he got defensive and said, “No, you didn’t”. You ordered lettuce, but not bacon. All this time I had been very patient and polite. I wasn’t about to get into an argument there because he got my order wrong. He gave me the check (fourteen bucks) for a burger that I didn’t even eat and told me to have a nice weekend.

Bottom line? Even though I work two blocks away at one of the large employers downtown, I’ll never set foot in Elsa’s again. Elsa’s is a perfect example of what is wrong with many businesses these days, diminished quality at inflated prices.

• Pros: Close to work.
• Cons: Not worth the walk.