Brown Derby Bad experience

carelo

AKA - Jasminegirlsmom
Joined
Jun 16, 2006
Messages
92
My DD and I recently returned from a week at the World. We were there on the free dining promotion so we decided to use 2 sit down credits to try out the Hollywood Brown Derby. We’ll never do that again.
We had an ADR for 7:30 on a Tuesday night. We arrived about 20 min early and were seated within minutes. We were seated a long the front wall at a booth where a large table had been pulled apart to make two smaller tables.

We sat there for almost 15 min before our waiter came to take our drink order. Because we’d been waiting for so long we were also ready to order our meals. We gave our drink and food orders to the waiter and a few minutes later he returned with our drinks. We sat and talked while waiting for our food to arrive. While we were waiting, my daughter noticed that several other tables had bread and wondered why we didn’t. I guessed that they had ordered the bread separately. WRONG. We finished our drinks and the waiter, wandered by and said “Oh, I guess you need some bread” a few minutes later he returned with a basket of bread. We had both ordered the Char-grilled 12 oz New York Strip Steak - Served with Herb Roasted Red Potatoes, Cremini Mushrooms, Tiny Onions, and Cabernet Syrup. When the servers brought the entrees they didn’t give us any steak knives, so we sat there for several more minutes trying to cut the steaks with butter knives, unsuccessfully I might add. This whole time our waiter had been standing just two tables away from us visiting with the group at that table; apparently one of the people at the table was a former cast member. He eventually looked over and saw that we weren’t able to cut the steaks and walked over to our table to say he’d bring us some steak knives (like he was doing us a big favor). Now remember we finished our drinks before the bread came, not only did the waiter never bring us refills, he never even asked if we wanted one and never stuck around long enough for us to ask for one. He’d just walk by on his way to the table with the former cast member not even glancing at our table for fear we might actually want something.

We finished the meal. The steaks were good, but not great. Just a piece of meat and some sauce we saw onions but never found any mushrooms. The potatoes were nicely seasoned if a bit dry, on the whole I would say this was an average meal. We waited 25 min (no kidding we timed it) after we finish eating our entrees before our waiter reappeared to ask what we wanted for dessert. We gave him our dessert order (thank goodness we had decided on the desserts when we were first looking at the menu or we might still be sitting there looking at the dessert menu waiting for him to come back.), and low and behold he noticed that our drinks were empty. He casually asked if we wanted another drink and we were so parched we practically pleaded “YES!!”

For dessert my daughter had the Grapefruit cake, I had the cheesecake. We each had a bite of both desserts and agreed that I had made the better choice.

All in all, this was the worst experience at a Disney restaurant we’ve ever had; definitely the poorest service. I would say don’t waste your time on this restaurant.
 
That's horrible!

It's definitely worth it to complain about service like that. That server probably thinks he did a wonderful job. :confused3
 
wow, how blatantly rude of that waiter! - i love the food and ambience there, but being ignored by the waitstaff is what DH hates about the place - in the 3 times DH and i ate there together, all 3 times we were "ignored" by our waiter as well (as he spent more time being chatty with other tables)
 

Friends of ours had a similar experience last Fall at the Brown Derby. They waited over 30 mins for their waitperson to take their drink order. Meanwhile, some tables who were sat at the same time were getting their meals.

We on the other hand, ate there years ago and had amazing service! Our glasses were never less than 1/2 full as the waitress was always bringing us a fresh glass. She asked us if we were planning on seeing Fantasmic and when we said yes, she gave us tickets to sit in the reserved section. This was when they first started the dinner package so they might have been marketing it, but it was still nice of her to do that.
 
Wow! So sorry that happened to you. How did the manager handle it when you spoke with them about your experience?
 
That was our exact experience when we went back in 2004 for DH's 50th birthday. The service was horrible (and there were only five or six tables occupied in the whole restaurant), the food bland and the grapefruit cake--awful. We've never gone back and probably never will.
 
I'm sorry you had that bad experience. I've eaten at Brown Derby twice. We had the Fantasmic Package both times. I had the Cobb Salad, Strip Steak, and cheesecake both times. I had great experiences. I think you just got a waiter that was more interested in chatting with friends than serving you. Our servers have been great in the past. People rave over the grapefruit cake, I don't care for that dessert at all. Give me my cheesecake :)
 
I was thinking I am much more assertive. I would be flagging the server down to get a drink refill if they never came around or asked! :rotfl2:
Sorry it did not meet your expectations though.
 
I was thinking I am much more assertive. I would be flagging the server down to get a drink refill if they never came around or asked! :rotfl2:
Sorry it did not meet your expectations though.

I'm like you - I wait for about 10 mins tops and if I can't flag down the waitperson, I find a manager and let them know what we need.
 
I always say a waiter can really influence your meal and this is a perfect example. If you had a great waiter that provided excellant top notch signature service, just think how different your experience would have been.

Instead of focusing on how bad it was, yuo would have had the chance to really appreciate the room, the caricatures, and take a nice break

Sorry you had the experience you did :(
 
im sorry you had a bad experience at this restaurant. But to say everyone should stay away i would not agree with, MANY people have had Great experiences at this restaurant. I would have asked for a manager and made sure he knew how disappointed i was and see if he could make some sort of compensation. I had a bad experience with a waiter the first time i went to Narcoossees and im glad i decided to give it a 2nd chance, because now it is my absolute Favorite restaurant at WDW and i would never known that had i not went back and tried again. Even the best restaurants in the world can have a bad meal, but look how many GREAT meals they were able to produce also. All im saying is please consider that this might have been a bad day at the restaurant, its not always like this, i can attest to this, i have had many great meals there.
 
It is very hard sometimes to deal with an issue. I know I don't want to - I am on vacation - I don't want to deal with the confrontation (in my mind it is a confrontation) and I think it will improve.

Not the best way I know, but there are many more people that will just cross the place off the list rather than deal with a manager about a problem (and ideally, the manager should be floating and asking if things are ok, then is a great time to say why no, it isn't :))
 














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