★★★★★
The food was precisely what one expects from a chain restaurant: resolutely middle-of-the-road fare assembled from seasoning packets and pre-portioned ingredients, then presented on enormous, piping-cold plates with such generous expanses of empty ceramic that we were left wondering whether half the meal had been dropped on the floor en route to the table.
The service, however, was abysmal.
“Agonizingly slow” would almost be charitable. In a party of four, drink orders were somehow missed for two children and one adult, an impressive 75% failure rate on what is generally considered the opening act of restaurant service. One child was served sour milk, which was certainly memorable, though perhaps not in the manner management intended.
Requests disappeared into the ether. There was virtually no follow-up. The children's meals arrived incomplete, and getting the missing items required yet another exercise in attracting someone's attention and then waiting to discover whether the request would actually materialize.
By the end, our expectations had been reduced considerably. We asked for the children's desserts to simply be boxed to go, reasoning that surely placing dessert into a container represented a sufficiently modest challenge.
Apparently not.
Another ten minutes passed.
The food itself was forgettable but serviceable, which is honestly all anyone asks of this sort of chain restaurant. The service managed the considerably more difficult feat of making mediocrity seem like the establishment's strongest quality.
