Sambuca Uptown

Fantastic Dining!

I dont want to let this experience ruin my opinion of Sambuca. The staff was very unorganized in getting us seated at the correct table. However, after we were seated our waiter, James did a good job. Sambuca should give diners the option of dining in the or closer to the dance floor & the band.

The atmosphere of the uptown location was energetic. The food was fantastic! Great presentation and portions for the price. Overall, I had a great experience!

Once our appetizers were served the waiter obtained each person’s meal request. After sampling the Seafood Martini, I explained to the waiter that the taste differed from what he described and reluctantly requested to return it, he agreed to comp it from our bill. Soon after, our dinner was served. Once everyone had finished eating, the hostess brought a birthday cake to the table. My friend’s mother lit the candles as his guest’s song happy birthday. During conversation with the other guests, I learned that Sambuca’s charged a whooping $35 to deliver the outside cake to the table. To make matters worse, their staff didn’t trouble themselves with offering to light the cake or gather around to join along in chanting happy birthday. Wow! Without regard to have requested our bill, the waiter presented our table with a bill that combined the entire group’s charges on one receipt. My friend stated that the bill would need to be separated by person(s). This was the onset of the most humiliating and debasing dining experiences one could ever fathom. The waiter brought our attention to the fine print on the menu that stated; $3 entrée split fee. We do not split checks on parties of 8 or more. 18% gratuity added for parties of 8 or more. My friend patiently explained to the waiter that he was not made aware of this when he phoned in the reservation and based on the extensive wait (fifty eight minutes to be exact) for seating felt his party, he felt the restaurant should at least accommodate his guests splitting the bill into four parts. The waiter reluctantly approached the fire breathing GM and we watched afar as he explained the details of our request and she nods her head in disagreement. Storming to our table, Jayme loudly stated, “As my waiter has advised, we do not separate checks for large parties! If you can not work out something amongst yourselves then I am willing to permit one person within your group to leave the restaurant to locate an ATM.” At that moment, I felt as though I was back in third grade adhering to my teacher using an (con't)

an amplifier to instruct her students on putting away their lunch trays and to correctly form a line to return to class. This was unbelievable. Was separating our bill that hard? I didn’t personally know half the people in our group and definitely didn’t want to be slammed with paying anyone’s bill outside my husband and myself. A couple of people out of our group decided to approach Jayme in efforts to privately resolve the matter. They returned to inform us that she was not willing to split the bill and irately advised the mediators that she was phoning the police to let them handle it! WTH! Where was all of this coming from? A woman who sat adjacent from our table took notice of all the commotion and approached our table to brief us their party included approximately twelve guest and the restaurant gave no pushback when requested to split their checks. I could not believe what I was hearing. What had we done to make Jayme so angry? A gentleman who ID himself as Cesar Levano seemed to have observed all the hurly-burly and came over and explained that although he sympathized with us, he could not over ride Jayme as she was in charge that night. Come on dude, stand up for what’s right here. Assured the police would rectify the matter, a couple of us waited outside for them to arrive. Once on scene they initially spoke with Jayme and then took our story. Once we explained to the police officer that there our party consists of 21 people most of which were in pairs and all we wanted was separate checks. The officer then pulled Jayme aside. His attempts to convenience her to simply separate our bill and send us on our way were unsuccessful. The officer recommended that we seize the opportunity to send someone to the ATM, gave my friend his card and left. Once back in the restaurant, my friend’s mother in law had already proceeded to pay the almost $600 tab! Upon analyzing the invoice we noticed the waiter did not remove the $10.50 Seafood Martini I returned and erroneously charged for 2 additional $10 cocktails! Unbelievable! My husband and I collectively consumed a total of $92 in food and drinks that was mediocre at its best. We despised not only having to part with that much money for a restaurant that only thought so little of their customers but presented such an atrocious dining experience and substandard food headed by a very aloof and snobbish general manager. In this economy, dining out is truly a luxury, a privilege denied to many. I refuse to patronize an establishment as Sambuca’s. Perhaps the owners of Sambuca’s restaurant should consider enrolling Jayme the GM in the University of Pappadeaux. Those folks have both customer service and gratifying food down to a science. That probably won’t happen since all the Pappa’s management staff hold degrees.

I had a reservation that I had made weeks in advance for 8 PM. They called me at 6:30 PM the night of the reservation and cancelled my reservation because they were going to have a private event. It was the night before the superbowl and everything was completely reserved, so I had no where to go for my birthday. They were not apologetic at all and didn't seem to care that I was upset. Not the greatest first impression.

I placed a reservation for this restaurant and when we arrived, there was no trace of it. I showed the hostess my reservation, but since they did not have record of it in there system, they did not have a table available. This really is not the restaurant's fault, rather the fault of DallasRestaurants.com. I would caution against using this third party reservations service, and suggest you speak with the restaurant directly. This happened on a very special occasion and could have ruined our plans had I not made several other reservations downtown as well.