Fat Belgian

I independently concur with the other reviewers of this establishment. From my experience, the male servers in this place are nice and friendly, but the women seem to continuously have large objects up their asses. They seem to be quite unhappy individuals. However, the food is above average.

You can have excellent food and the perfect location, but if your service sucks, nothing can save you in my books.

This evening, my friends and I went to The Fat Belgian to celebrate my birthday. We were all having a good time and doing our best to enjoy ourselves.

There was a mix up with one of my friends' orders as she had ordered the pork tenderloin and received duck instead. The waitress immediately launched into a very defensive rant, which was unnecessary since my friend was not upset, but merely confused.

I then asked my friend what happened and learned that apparently the pork sold out 3 hours ago, so I responded with "that's dumb", because we had put in our orders at least 2 hours ago. Suddenly the waitress came back and demanded we repeat what we just said. We had no idea what she was referring to. Next thing we know, the manager comes up to our table with "I would appreciate you not insult my servers" (apparently she believed someone called her server dumb) and proceeds to lecture my poor friend on how her server was doing her best and nothing can be done if the pork is sold out etc. It was the most ridiculous situation and the accusatory tone was completely uncalled for, especially since it was clearly all based on misunderstanding. And as I tried to interject to explain, I was repeatedly and very rudely cut off and told to stay out of it. Meanwhile, my poor friend looked close to tears.

After our meal, I personally went to the waitress to try to clear up the misunderstanding about the "dumb" comment that she obviously mistook to referring to herself when it was actually referring to the pork that had been unavailable.

I then went to take issue with the manager, who is also supposedly the owner. My intention was merely to seek fairness. Her attitude and tone were completely uncalled for and had left my friends and I extremely uncomfortable. While I approached her calmly and explained the situation, I was summarily dismissed and told that our discomfort is nothing compared to the hurt feelings of her server. This came after we had already sorted out that it was a misunderstanding. The only apology I elicited for the mistaken accusation was "I'm sorry you felt that way". (tres insincere!) She then added that she did feel it was a shame that my friend did not order a replacement dish, but if my friend wanted to starve, that is her choice. I couldn't believe what I was hearing!

It was the most awful, unprofessional service I have ever received in my life.

I regret that I had to write so much here, but I wanted to ensure that as much detail is provided so others may judge for themselves. Please note that we were out to have fun and given the occasion (my bday), we were really trying very hard to avoid trouble and not make too big a fuss. When I got back to the table, I realized some of my friends even left a tip in spite of everything. No apology was ever made to us (or to my poor friend).

Such treatment is simply unacceptable. I would like to urge everyone to please take heed - bad customer service does not deserve to be rewarded. Anyone in this industry (esp owners!) should be aware of that, or they should not be in the business.