Extremely Bad Service & Just Plain Rudeness

We went to Tailor to celebrate a friend's birthday last Friday night. We had a reservation for 15 but only 13 showed up. The manager said "no problem" and adjusted the seating. We told them in advance that we had a cake and a few bottles of champagne for our birthday girl, typical of any place you go to. However they refused to cut, serve, and uncork the champagne bottles, contradicting what they'd told us on the phone. Instead they told us to buy the same champagne from them but at 3x the cost we'd paid. They didn't even offer a corking fee for the champagne (or an unboxing fee for the cake). which would have been the right thing to do. However at the conclusion of our night, they did serve the cake. Why the rule all of a sudden change no one knows ... perhaps it was because we'd already received (and paid for, their desert as part of our prix-fixe meal, and we'd ordered a lot of their champagne and wine as well). However the biggest surprise of the night was to come soon enough. As soon as they put the bill down they said that they'd decided to charge us for 15 people according to our reservation, even though we only had 13 in our party (of which 1 person was only sitting and not eating). This was unprofessional of them considering they never told us this when they removed the extra seats at the beginning of the meal, and hadn't been clear when they made the reservation.

While the increased bill would have been understandable had the restaurant been full and seatings had been lost, it was a bit empty for the whole time we sat. Likewise, had we ordered anything special, we would have understood the lost ingredients, but the menu was the standard prix fixe, and items off of the normal menu, so inventory alone would not have been reason enough for the increased charge. The two lost seatings were probably par for the course for a group of 15, which is often unpredictable. A clear cancellation policy should have been stated in advance. Alternatively, they could have dealt with the matter with grace: apologizing, compromising, or comping part of the extra portions. Instead, we were simply dismissed, on account of "policy." That policy had not been articulated in advance of the bill. It was clear that they (meaning the manager) simply wanted us to leave, while in any other restaurant, they would have tried to make us want to come back.

On top of all of this, after we were already irritated, she said they couldn't process all of cards, though they subsequently tried anyway. When we got our bills, we had been charged different amounts (the confusion came because 12 people were being charged for 15 people, and one had offered to pay for 2 shares of our 13 person bill, but was instead charged for 4 shares of our original 15 person seating or something like that). Why anyone would divide the bill by 15 people, when only 13 were there is quite beyond me. Consequently we ended up having to redo the whole thing which took no less then 20 minutes of waiting. Since the staff couldn't figure out the math, the manager demanded that we do it and left in a huff. Nothing a cell phone calculator couldn't take care of (well done Gabi!). All in all we spent a great deal of money on a nice meal but overshadowed by dictatorial service. It should be noted that the manager was the only member of the staff who was rude and dismissive. She had no creditability amongst her staff and left them as confused as we were. I would not recommend someone going here unless you are quite comfortable with taking the opinions and policies of others as gospel, even when they defy the principles of decorum, marketing and salesmanship. In short, I would recommend Tailor for their food, but certainly not for their morals.



Posted by: ali khan
On: 4/22/2008 9:27:00 AM

unprofessional staff

this place has a nice atmosphere but the service attitude from the owner and the manager is extremely unprofessional. we were told in order to have a party there, you need to pay a lot of money up front or you have to be famous. there are many places in new york that are just as nice/nicer without any attitude. definitely don't waste your time.

Posted by: elena
On: 11/5/2007 12:11:00 AM

This place SUCKS!!!!

This is possibly the rudest place I have been to in the 7 years I lived in NYC. The host was pretentious, and the Manager yelled at us to get out and threatened to call the police on us. So what did we do????? We showed up for our friend's bday party only to be disappointed. They refused to provide any service and gave us the worst attitude. Who ever is associated with this establishment should be completely embarrased. Doesn't even warrant a half star....but the sytem won't accept less than one.

Posted by: Steven
On: 11/3/2007 1:03:00 PM