We like Il Fornaio for their interesting regional Italian menus and their decent cooking of same, and the one here in Colorado is in near-by Greenwood Village. Last time we went, it was a near-disaster, rescued by a great waitress, Allie. This time, we had Allie again as our server — and, once again, she rescued a disastrous experience.
So this was going to be our quiet, relaxing, been-a-bad-day-for-both-of-us, last night together alone before Kitten flies home tomorrow. Didn’t quite work out that way.
We were able to get a table for two immediately at 7:15p — we were led to a small round table against an interior wall, a fairly high traffic location, but we figured it would be okay.
Then it started raining.
Now, we were inside, so it didn’t directly affect us. But it’s July in Denver. It does, in fact, frequently rain in the late afternoon and evenings. It’s been raining every night this week, and it was predicted to rain. So this shouldn’t have come as any shock to either the wedding party or the management.
Yet there was a group of 60-odd on the patio — which does not have a rain cover — for a wedding reception. Who let them book that space in that timeframe, if the patio was unprotected? And, more importantly, who then wasn’t ready for them to have to move in? Obviously someone was thinking something like this might happen, because there were set up folding tables for about 30 at one end of the room … but that still meant having to find seating for another 30-plus. On a Friday night.
At which point, our end of the restaurant became a massive fire drill of tables being slid past, table being extended outward, the space between us and the adjoining table being narrowed to just barely cart/table-sliding width, and staff running around in all directions to get things ready. The guests in the area who were at tables that could be potentially occupied by a large influx were (unless they were just finishing up) moved … but nobody wanted our now-tightly-penned-in two-top, so nobody asked us.
(There’s a picture of the main dining room here. Now imagine, where they have the two four-tops across the center of the room, instead they are putting in four four-top tables to make eight on a side, squeezing in to make it ten on each side, plus putting people on the ends. Oh, and that little two-top next to the french doors? That’s similar to the seat we were in.)
We finished our appetizer/salad, and I tried to flag someone down to let them know we wanted to move, especially before the hordes came flooding in. Then someone tried to bring us our entrees, and we waved it off, indicating we wanted to move first. Our waitress came by, got the scoop, and went in search of a table for us, no questions asked.
Before she could return, someone tried to bring us our entrees again, because the whole staff, and the managers, were focused entirely on the wedding party problem.
Our waitress got us moved to another table, apologized profusedly, and repeatedly, and made sure that our food was still warm (which, since it meant a bit of reheating, didn’t help its condition, but it was good enough that it didn’t ruin it).
We were pretty unhappy at this point, and Margie asked a different server who was delivering new silverware to have a manager come over. She said she would. Fifteen minutes later, nobody had arrive.
Meanwhile, our waitress, Allie, had swung by the table a couple of times, still apologetic, still looking for what she could do to help. Did we want to have fresh entrees? Could she comp us a dessert? We asked if she could have a manager come over.
It took another five minutes for a manager to arrive (as the management and staff were still fluttering around the wedding party, which was now being seated on overcrowded tables). The manager who did come by asked all the right questions, but I had the sense the he was more quoting from “How to get a customer off your back in the minimal amount of time” book. While asking upset customers what they wanted that might make things good, it’s also a fine idea to offer some ideas. And given that it was the restaurant management that had allowed the booking and not adequately planned for how to deal with weather problems, I had little patience for being schmoozed.
Ultimately, though, Allie pulled it out. She paid attention to us. We got comped dessert, and coffee, and it turned out she comped our wine (which was a not-inexpensive bottle of Taurasi). Between that, and her sincere-seeming solicitude and willingness to let us bend her ear, she turned a major aggravation into something … well, more anecdote-worthy. And she made it altogether possible that we’ll return, because the food is, in fact, pretty darned good.
And if we do, we’ll ask to be seated in an area she’s covering. Because she — unlike her management — treats individual customers well.