Portobello's at DTD - Service would have to IMPROVE to be terrible.

[3floridarays]

The service was non-existant! We tried to eat lunch at Portobello's today, but we didn't make it that far. We got there just after they opened for lunch and walked in the front door and over to the hostess stand, where two employees were standing. We didn't get a "hello", "welcome", "how many in your party?", nada. They just looked at us like we we had inturrupted their conversation or something. I said "party of 3, and could we please sit outside by the water?". The hostess didn't answer, just grabbed 3 menus, asked the other girl to find out who was going to cover our table, said "hold on a second" and walked off. Since she didn't ask us to follow her, we stayed put. She got about 20 feet out onto the patio, turned around to us and said "Come on", like we were children who weren't paying attention. She started leading us to a table in the back corner next to the building, so I asked (again) if we could sit at one of the tables by the water. She said "well, pick one" - so I did. We were the 3rd table to be seated on the patio; I noticed that the other two tables did not have there drinks yet. After about 5 minutes, a server brought drinks to one of the tables. After a couple more minutes, another server took the drink order of the family seated closest to us (3 tables away). Fifteen minutes after being seated, we still had not been greeted by a server or had a drink order taken. I am not someone who pushes my patronage on anyone, so we didn't even bother to complain. It was quite obvious that we were sitting there and hadn't been served. So we got up and left. We walked over to Cookes for fish & chips, where the service was fast and friendly and the food was delicious.

We will not go back to Portobella's again. There is no excuse for ignoring customers.

 

[Infamousmare]

Oh no! I was so excited to get a ressie here for our trip next month. I'm anxious to hear what others have to say. If your experience is the norm, I'll cancel.

Thanks for posting. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.

 

[Sweet Melissa]

Oh no! I was so excited to get a ressie here for our trip next month. I'm anxious to hear what others have to say. If your experience is the norm, I'll cancel.

Thanks for posting. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.

Don't worry about that. If the OP's experience were the norm, the restaurant would be closed.

OP, I too am sorry that you had such a disappointing experience, especially since they serve some of the better Italian food on property.