The Uptown Cafeteria in Minneapolis

This the first post by the Twin Cities Service Guru on a specific business. The first place I have chosen to review is the relatively new restaurant in the Uptown area of Minneapolis - The Uptown Cafeteria on Lake Street. This post encapsulates two visits that my wife and I have had there - one for dinner and another for their Sunday breakfast/brunch.

I usually give new restaurants a little slack when they first open, but unfortunately The Cafeteria is way outside the bounds of normal starting-up hiccups. When my wife and I went there for dinner on a Sunday evening, the restaurant was fairly busy. In theory, it looked like they had plenty of staff on, which is to be expected when a new restaurant is trying to get their routine down. In reality, they had so many staff on because they were training a large bunch of entirely inexperienced servers. This is a big mistake for a new restaurant.

It was actually confusing to us who was our server any given point during the meal as at least one of our servers was a new trainee. The regular server had no chance to develop any rapport with us. They may have gotten away with this had the service not been extremely slow, the wrong drinks brought out to us, the food extremely slow in getting out, and then one of the dishes was very poorly prepared. The "official" server did not handle any of these mistakes very well at all. It was only when one of the (many) hosts/managers happened to come by and see how our meal was that we told him what happened. He did take the item off the bill, but the damage had been done. When we recently returned for brunch, it was marginally improved. The restaurant was way over-staffed for how many customers were there. There were actually 4 people behind the bar and absolutely no-one sitting at the bar at peak brunch hour! There also appeared to be at least 3-4 host/managers behind the host-stand at one point. When we arrived, the host said the "bar area" was open, but if we wanted a table on the "restaurant" side he would have to check with us. He committed a cardinal sin in the service world - lying to potential customers. We had walked by and seen seats in that area, but the host was trying to make sure certain areas were more filled up at that time. He could have made the same offer and received the same response without stating something that was not true. Neither the host nor the server gave us menus when we first sat down. One issue was the fact that they charge $13 for Eggs Benedict, and then have the nerve to say this does not include a side such as potatoes. This is to be expected at a 5-star hotel/restaurant, not a mid-level restaurant still trying to find its feet, and smacks of being over-priced.

The Uptown Cafeteria needs to improve its service by doing several things: (1) hire more experienced staff - restaurants have been closing during the recession so they are out there looking, (2) when a mistake is made in terms of food or service, the server needs to have the authority to fix it on the spot and actually do it, (3) just because you are a new restaurant trying to look busy to people outside, do not lie to customers in the door and treat them well - their recommendation will be much better for your future business, and (4) rethink their brunch menu to include a side with the main courses.