Happy Sunday everyone 🙂 Who has had an awesome weekend? What’d you do?
Welp, this morning started off with a little bit of a late start (thank you time change), a good run, and I’m about to head out the door to a blogger meet up. Fun!
But before I get to that . . . let’s back track to last night and the real point of this post 🙂
Being Nice Pays Off
Last night was our originally planned anniversary dinner.
Promise you, this is our last anniversary celebration 🙂 This dinner was SUPPOSED to be last Wednesday, but Zach thought he was traveling so we postponed the reservation. And then he ended up not traveling so we did lots of celebration in between :). I hope you all don’t mind :).
We started off the evening at a new-to-us bar in the neighborhood, Churchhill’s Public House. We were only there for a drink (4 dollar Malbec for this girl, hello!), but we definitely enjoyed ourselves. There were tons of TV’s showing all different kinds of sports, all different kinds of games and seating area options. I could easily see us going back there for sporting events in the future. . .
The highlight of the evening was a date to one of our FAVORITE local spots, Duo. We made 730 reservations and were sure to show up early (closer to 715 than 730) to get our table.
We were warned that our table wasn’t ready yet, since we were early. . . but that it shouldnt’ be a problem to be seated by 730. So we went to the bar to order a drink to enjoy with dinner.
Welp, 730 came and passed with no table. Thankfully, the hostess came up to us and let us know that the people in our table were eating their dessert and that it shouldn’t be long. . .
By 745, I started to get a little annoyed, but stayed quiet. This is when the bartender ALSO apologized, and let us know they were still eating their dessert, but that the kitchen was going to be sending us out a snack.
Sorry for the poor lighting, but that is salmon in an amazing fresh and spicy puree of some sort. It was tiny, but helped to make us feel a little better about the situation. Pays to be nice 🙂
And then 8 PM rolled around and we still weren’t seated. Whomp whomp. By about 805-810 we were finally taken to our table with TONS of apologies.
Now don’t get me wrong, I totally get that restaurants get busy and patrons stay longer than anticipated. . . but almost 40 minutes was a little frustrating. Oh well . . . we knew the meal would be good.
Like every meal at Duo, we started with marinated olives and flat bread, that didn’t dissapoint :).
And split a mushroom tart appetizer that was tiny but PACKED with flavor.
But my entree stole the show. Grilled chicken in a jalepeno cheddar polenta with jelly on the top. AMAAZING. I literally couldn’t stop eating it, so good.
Zach got a braised beef dish and we both polished the meals together without problem.
The real nice surprise was when we got the check — not only was our snack free (which we anticipated) our first round of drinks were free. I promise you we didn’t mention that it was our anniversary this time, they just felt bad for the wait.
And let me tell you — that is one way to totally make the wait seem OK. Everyone in the restaurant was apologetic, they gave us a snack, and comped us drinks. I’ll wait 30 minutes for that 🙂
And that my friends, is why it pays to be nice 🙂
And of course, we capped off the evening with Little Man ice cream — AMAZING. The place was packed at almost 10 o’clock, but TOTALLY worth it. Best dessert ever. Love this warmer weather Denver is having 🙂
Question of the Morning: Have you had a situation like this before when you made reservations? Were you nice 😉
It certainly is nice to be nice 🙂 your meal looked delish!
Duo never disappoints 🙂 ❤
Two Thanksgivings ago we were sat an hour after our reservation and we arrive fifteen minutes early too. I was nice but dumping because I was starving from a 10 mile run. They did give us a glass of wine which helped a tad.
I would have been freaking out if I were Rangry!
I ain’t fancy like you folks, so I usually don’t go to joints that take reservations. Glad you had fun tho.
LOL – let’s just say it’s not our norm. This week has been rare, and our checkbooks show it. Thankfully there were some gift cards involved.
Have fun at the blogger meetup. I’ve been wanting to do something like that, I know Denver has tons of options.
We should organize something!
We should! That’d be fun. Feel free to email me: tay-hansen@hotmail.com
Valentine’s Day was like that for us but that was to be expected. Everyone had reservations that night and of course the place was running late, even though they called everyone days ahead of time and even told us to please not spend longer than an hour and a half at the restaurant. lol We are usually nice about stuff like that but I totally understand why you’d be annoyed! Who spends that long eating dessert?
We both agreed it was totally worth it because they took such good care of us — but wouldn’t expect it all the time.
I completely agree that you should be nice. Generally speaking, the people delivering the message that your table isn’t ready, had nothing to do with the mix-up/over-booking. I would never expect free things, but that’s a nice bonus. I know that being mean would only make me feel crappy later. So glad you enjoyed the meal though 🙂 And I need that ice cream to go with my cookies 😉
LOL — so glad you are liking the cookies! 🙂 If only ice cream would send through the mail . . .
Hehe you’re the best
I tried polenta for the first time this weekend and loved it! I wrote about a similar situation on my blog earlier and agree- it does pay to be nice 🙂