I don’t understand what how a place can keep guests waiting for 2 hours. It took them 2 hours to serve us. We arrived a 6:45p for a birthday party w/ 2 small children and we finally received our bill at 9pm. We ordered pizza. That’s it. Salad and Pizza. Oh, and a 60 dollar bottle of Vietti Barolo. The bill came to 182.00. they didn’t however deliver our food for the kids! Ice cream. A simple stupid dish of ice cream took them 30 minutes?! Finally, we got up and left. Did they apologize? Did they say ANYTHING? no it was, “uh, so you are leaving?” Why yes, you stupid pathetic excuse for protoplasm, what does it look like we are doing?
Here is a paraphrased transcript of the interaction with the grey bearded dullard who pretends to run this hash-counter:

Me: I notice you gave yourself a 30 dollar tip. I don’t tip on wine when I order bottles over 50 dollars, especially since I know you’ve marked it up 300%. Moreover, you burned my food, took 3 hours to serve us, you NEVER brought out our desserts and never acknowledged that people who were sat AFTER us ate BEFORE us.

DumbA$$: That is our policy, if it is on the menu, we add the tip to parties of 6 or more.

Me: Oh really, since when do 2 four year old girls who are sleeping due to waiting 3 hours for their food count as PEOPLE? When a 30 dollar tip is in order that’s when. You didn’t serve them anything but bread and water. Our dogs get better service than that.

DumbA$$: Uh, yeah. So it is your right to remove the pre-set 18% gratuity?

ME: That’s funny, pre-set GRATUITY? That kinda defeats the purpose of a GRATUITY. You failed. REmove it immediately.

At this point, I removed the tip and mentioned on the bill that the server take her tip out of the exorbitant markup on the wine.

This was my 2nd trip here. The first trip made me sick with disentary due to a soup that was left at room temp for 4-5 hours. I gave it a second try. Never again.

The Portland eating scene is a simpleton’s paradise. Portlanders are primarily an insular bunch who get most of their world culinary views from their Pac northwest idol, Rick Steves. This navel-gazing, not-invented-here town has a giant chip on its shoulder. Portland is the DMZ somewhere between religious zealots and white supremists. This town is runty little place filled with wannabes and never-weres. It doesn’t surprise me that the Much Ado About Nothing City of Portland would fawn over such a mediocre place. The title of the next book on PDX restaurant reviews should be called Less Than Zero: A guide to self-deception in a town of Lumber Lesbians and Nike Performance Be-Fleeced NewMen.

Nostrana…. Just DONT Do It.