Kentucky Club (old Gabriella's)

[Steve]

Waiting for Tuck to explain how it's supposed to be done....

[PennyQuilts]

one of the things our waiter told us that night was that they didn't have enough dishes and silverware to serve everyone, so they were not seating tables until they could wash dishes.

not enough dishes?????????????????????

[Jersey Boss]

He had a reservation, though. The restaurant could have declined to accept a reservation for that size. Once they did, seems like they would have an obligation to honor it.

Exactly. The restaurant could have also offered complimentary drinks to the waiting party. Write the expense off as good will and a lesson on accepting reservations. The cost would have been small compared to the lost business of pissing off 12 who had a reservation.

[Jersey Boss]

not enough dishes?????????????????????

I've heard enough. If that is true, they have jumped the shark.

[Pete]

Guys, they haven't even been open 2 months.

Give them some bloody time.

[TeriOKC]

Everyone - FWIW

do yourselves a favor and try Bella Vista on the south side. It is incredible. I don't even care for Italian food all that much and I've actually had a dream about the place! The best marinara you'll ever taste ziti ala vodka...oh my goodness!!!!

[PennyQuilts]

Guys, they haven't even been open 2 months.

Give them some bloody time.

Pete, I know you like them and wish them well, but, well ... this reminds me of someone I knew who was fired about a week of being hired because they never got to work earlier than an hour late. They actually fought to keep their job because they hadn't yet gone to orientation and claimed that they just didn't know they had to show up on time. Lack of enough dishes in a restaurant, if true, doesn't get better with time. It isn't like this is a lemonade stand. Honestly, though, that sounds so insane it is hard to believe it. Maybe the waiter just made it up?

[Pete]

I'm sure they have enough dishes... Getting them clean and back out again was undoubtedly the issue.

And of course I wish them well. They seem like great people, spent a ton of money on a beautiful old space, seem to have excellent food and are a family-run business, including the cooks/chefs.

We aren't talking about an Olive Garden here.

[PennyQuilts]

I'm sure they have enough dishes... Getting them clean and back out again was undoubtedly the issue.

And of course I wish them well. They seem like great people, spent a ton of money on a beautiful old space, seem to have excellent food and are a family-run business, including the cooks/chefs.

We aren't talking about an Olive Garden here.

But, but, but Pete - how can a restaurant not have enough dishes to feed a full house???? They said it would be a long wait - they could run down to the local Target and get more dishes if it came to that. Of all the things I would expect them to run short on, clean dishes would be the last thing.

[tuck]

Waiting for Tuck to explain how it's supposed to be done....

Everyone should give them some more time to get things in order...tough business! I assume they didn't expect the crowds that they are having. They put a ton at risk here; they deserve another chance. Some operators are better than others, but we all expect to get better in time.

[Stew]

It's settled then, I will give them more time. I'll put it on my calendar to give this place a try in August 2013. That should be plenty of time to get through the learning curve.

[boscorama]

I ran into a restaurant owner at WalMart one Saturday, hurriedly buying glasses in order to serve his customers. Sounded like a plan to me.

[Steve]

Thanks Tuck. Good reminder. I suspect there's a big disconnect in the understanding of how much heart, passion, work and pain are involved in starting up a restaurant. God bless those who take their best shot at it.

[PennyQuilts]

Just checked urbanspoon. Gosh, horrible reviews based not just on minor things - big stuff. I still would like to go but, really, especially for a restaurant that has successes elsewhere, this is so unexpected. http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/46/16816...-Oklahoma-City

[soonerguru]

Everyone - FWIW

do yourselves a favor and try Bella Vista on the south side. It is incredible. I don't even care for Italian food all that much and I've actually had a dream about the place! The best marinara you'll ever taste ziti ala vodka...oh my goodness!!!!

I've tried it. And while it is wonderfully homey and charming, it is limited: there is no wine and only 3.2 beer on the menu. It is good, but the owner leaves to go to Greece for the entire month of August, and the restaurant shuts down, as we learned on a recent attempted birthday-dinner visit. That said, as good as it is, Gabriella's is better, if they could only get their $hit together.

[soonerguru]

But, but, but Pete - how can a restaurant not have enough dishes to feed a full house???? They said it would be a long wait - they could run down to the local Target and get more dishes if it came to that. Of all the things I would expect them to run short on, clean dishes would be the last thing.

I agree. But my party (family) thought it was charming in a way. Charming in the sense that they didn't know how popular they would be, and were unprepared. The charm wears off, however, if they don't fix this entirely fixable problem. Like I said, the food was very good and we had a great time. Hopefully, they will fix this front-of-house management stuff, because the food and concept is very good and it could be one of OKC's institutions. And if you know me, you know I wouldn't say that lightly. The food is very good and if they can get their $hit together, this could be one of OKC's all-time great restaurants.

[jbkrems]

Not to change the subject, but Tuck, the last time I was at Red, my party could not have been seated promptly at the time of our reservation, and we had to wait around for our table for 20-30 minutes. We were also a SMALL party, just 3 people. That was not acceptable. So, for you to say this restaurant needs more time, I disagree with that. They need to get their act together, and until I see a positive change at Gabriella's, I won't risk it there. Anywhere that does not honor its reservations promptly doesn't get my business.

[tuck]

We aren't perfect, but we do care about every single guest. We will always go above and beyond to make sure we have done everything to make your experience a positive one. I wish you would have notified me at the time this happened.

[Larry OKC]

Don't even get me started on Olive Garden...LOL

[SoonerDave]

Well, in spite of all this discussion, I've heard too many positive responses from those who have managed to actually GET a table at Gabriella's to dismiss them entirely. Given my current, ahem, reduced-calorie-plan, a big Italian dinner isn't exactly on my menu, but on a splurge day I sure would like to take my family there and give it a try.

Surely they will evaluate their logistical/organizational issues and get things straightened out. I always knew that starting/running a restaurant was a brutally difficult operation, and the majority fail in the first year, but after watching how incompetently run some are on the various restaurant overhaul shows (which I realize are exaggerations and/or heavily staged, but the underlying point remains), its a miracle ANY of them survive. If they have any restaurant-running chops at all, which they surely seem to, they've got to be given a chance to get their house in order. But it won't take too many dishonored reservations or "we're out of dishes" to turn the world sour on them, that's for sure. One way or the other, those issues have to be fixed.

And I'm all-in on the idea of if you're out of plates and knives, and people are waiting an hour-plus, there's no reason you don't tell someone to head to the nearest walmart and pick up something in the way of generic dishes. Even serving food on "generic" or "inconsistent" dinnerware is less embarrassing than telling customers "uh, we're out of plates..." I mean, geez, that just sounds awful...like a McDondald's running out of hamburger buns....?

[PennyQuilts]

I actually plan to check the place out when I get a chance. I won't take my husband, who isn't a red sauce fan, but I figure if I go alone or with a girlfriend, I'll be able to get in. If/when I do, I'll report back.

[Debzkidz]

[QUOTE=SoonerDave;569084]Well, in spite of all this discussion, I've heard too many positive responses from those who have managed to actually GET a table at Gabriella's to dismiss them entirely. Given my current, ahem, reduced-calorie-plan, a big Italian dinner isn't exactly on my menu, but on a splurge day I sure would like to take my family there and give it a try.

Surely they will evaluate their logistical/organizational issues and get things straightened out. I always knew that starting/running a restaurant was a brutally difficult operation, and the majority fail in the first year, but after watching how incompetently run some are on the various restaurant overhaul shows (which I realize are exaggerations and/or heavily staged, but the underlying point remains), its a miracle ANY of them survive. If they have any restaurant-running chops at all, which they surely seem to, they've got to be given a chance to get their house in order. But it won't take too many dishonored reservations or "we're out of dishes" to turn the world sour on them, that's for sure. One way or the other, those issues have to be fixed.

And I'm all-in on the idea of if you're out of plates and knives, and people are waiting an hour-plus, there's no reason you don't tell someone to head to the nearest walmart and pick up something in the way of generic dishes. Even serving food on "generic" or "inconsistent" dinnerware is less embarrassing than telling customers "uh, we're out of plates..." I mean, geez, that just sounds awful...like a McDondald's running out of hamburger buns....?[/QUOTE]

I agree. I think we will give them some time, then check them out. I talked to a friend yesterday who had been a week or so ago, and she loved it. Although, I must admit, she and I rarely agree on "good" restaurants. She often wants to go to lunch at places I just could live happily without ever setting foot in again. Went to breakfast with her yesterday at a place that she just loves, and I will probably never go to again.

As for the McDonalds comment, I couldn't help but laugh when I read it. We were traveling through Louisiana a few weeks ago and stopped at a McDonalds for breakfast. They weren't out of buns, but almost as bad, they were out of ketchup. Completely. No packets, none in the self serve spigots, none in the back where they assemble the food. How is this even possible? I thought surely the earth must be about to spin off its axis. Hubby and son were so mad, they walked next door to a Whataburger and got ketchup from them.

[Larry OKC]

Debzkidz: when I worked at various fast food joints (Wendys, McDonalds, Hardees, Taco Bueno etc) we weren't allowed to run out of anything, certainly not basics & not until the next truck came in...you either borrowed from another location...a competitor (yep we did it, we would sometimes borrow cleaning supplies from McDonalds when I worked at Wendys)...or you went to Walmart or Sams or someplace and got enough to get by. While you wanted to control inventory costs, you didnt want to run out either and spend more money sending an employee around town to get the stuff and/or paying retail either. granted I always worked in a larger metro area where there were a few options and not in a rural location.

[kevinpate]

... granted I always worked in a larger metro area where there were a few options and not in a rural location.

What Larry said. I was in the fast foodie world in the late 70 and early early 80's. I was single and mobile at the time so I worked units in communities with less than 5,000 population and units in places like Tulsa and MWC. If your planning was inadequate and you were actually out of something, you resolved the situation, right then. Not in a day or three when a truck was due, right then. You also took your lumps explaining how you failed to know you were going to run out instead of only running low enough to require stepping outside the norm to fix it before it became obvious to anyone other than staff.

Granted, Gabriella type venues should never be mistaken for fast food ops, but the same basic readiness concept should still apply to any unit in the food industry. Sure, anyone can have an off day. I don't care how good the shop is, it can still happen. But if it happens more than very, very, very rarely, somebody needs to get a firm grasp on the why and how of it and resolve the matter instead of simply accepting it or worse, letting the problems impact a customer.

I hope they get it together and go on to be wildly successful, even if I rarely venture to that part of the city.

[Jersey Boss]

I've tried it. And while it is wonderfully homey and charming, it is limited: there is no wine and only 3.2 beer on the menu. It is good, but the owner leaves to go to Greece for the entire month of August, and the restaurant shuts down, as we learned on a recent attempted birthday-dinner visit. That said, as good as it is, Gabriella's is better, if they could only get their $hit together.

An Italian restaurant that does not serve wine is like a BBQ joint that does not serve pork.