La Rosita and River City Winery today...interesting!

I have been a patron of La Rosita for a long time. Aftwr I finished playing tunes on the calliope on the Belle, my husband and I ventured over to the new locale for lunch., It is HUGE. .Upon arriving, we asked about the lower level. The hostess told me the restrooms were there. I ordered a soda and descended to the ladies room. Two of the doors did not shut, or did not have a working lock. Finally, I settled on the last stall where the toilet paper was on the ground, but at least there was a hook for my purse. There were four sinks; all of them had straws attached to the faucets. Only one sink dribbled out a bit of cold water from the straw. I had a lot of soap on my hands and could not rinse it off. There was also a sink in the bathroom lobby which had no plumbing. I remembered seeing a water fountain in the hall, and used that to get the soap off my hands. What a disgusting experience!

When I returned to our table, our delicious queso arrived. However, they started playing the THUMP THUMP music that my 16 year old listens to...I recognized FloRida as one of the artists. We looked around to see an over 50 crowd in the room. Our entire meal was ruined by the loud thump thump hip hop music. We could barely keep a conversation.After we got our bill, suddenly the music changed to a soft Mexican folk feel. When we paid our bill, I mentioned this to the people at the register. She said one of the servers programmed the music. Well....okay, but it ruined our lunch. We couldn't talk, we were were really offended by the music. . The acoustics are very "hot" in there and this may ruin your dinner.

Luckily, we found the River City Winery across the street. We had a lovely tasting and saw their menu and bought a couple of interesting blends. While I have been a hige fan of La Rosita, I may stick to carry out . If the health department ascends on them and those restrooms, good luck.

After I finished playing tunes on the calliope on the Belle, my husband and I ventured over to the new locale for lunch.,.

Wow,you play the calliope, thats very cool. Im guessing practice time is limited as I dont imagine you have one in your house.Any other calliopes around the area?
Sorry to go off topic...

We went Friday night and boy do they have some major growing issues to address. It was chaotic, not enough servers, ticket issues at the counter, and our frazzled waitress did not even have a tray to deliver the meals from the kitchen that was about a mile away. We love the food there, but they better get it together quickly or they will go down in flames. It could be the anchor along with Wicks that gets the strip mall zombies to downtown New Albany and then they could discover all the other wonderful eating spots in this charming town.. Good Luck to them.

Doesn't a restaurant have to have a Health Dept. inspection prior to opening?

It's too bad about the toliets, but it's premature to begin imagining that Rosita's was not inspected. New Albany can be frontier chaotic, but the Floyd County Health Department is efficient and professional.

There are organizational issues with any opening, and to be sure, our experience on Thursday at lunch was uneven. The food was wonderful as always, but the servers -- all veterans of the eatery -- just hadn't yet figured out how to move in all that cavernous space. Their body language still reflected the cramped confines up the street. They'll figure it out.

No, there are not many calliopes left- a couple of moblile ones and a few electric ones on boats but ours on the Belle is one of the few original steam driven types left- once called a "steam piano". It also gives me loads of grief when the pipes stick, etc. It's only 2 1/2 octaves and is made of brass and copper keys. This is my 5th year on it, I share duties with another lady. We are the loudest gals in town! You don't practice, nope!

re- I made an omission error- those were NOT the only restroom- they did have one shared restroom in the restaurant, which my husband used. However, no woman should be steered downstairs until they get the plumbing fixed to the sinks.

No, there are not many calliopes left- a couple of moblile ones and a few electric ones on boats but ours on the Belle is one of the few original steam driven types left- once called a "steam piano". It also gives me loads of grief when the pipes stick, etc. It's only 2 1/2 octaves and is made of brass and copper keys. This is my 5th year on it, I share duties with another lady. We are the loudest gals in town! You don't practice, nope!

This is so very cool! How awesome you get to play that. Sure belts out a bit louder than the tiny keyboard at Rosco's huh?!
(And yeah yeah yeah I went off topic but so what!? Calliope music! Whoot!)

I love La Rosita and was amazed by the size of the new location. Given that the food at La Rosita is always spectacular and the service (at the old location) was almost always sub-par, we decided to give them time to iron out the wrinkles with the new digs, for a few weeks, and ended up across the street at River City Winery Saturday night.

We started with an order of crabcakes which everyone agreed were really good. Then, we split a couple of pizzas (Margarita and Sicilian) with the our friends, and both were superb. My wife and I shared a bottle of Pomegranate Blueberry wine. The wine was good, but we agree that it is somewhat dangerous (in a good way) because it tastes like juice.

We will definitely be back to RCW and cant wait to get to the new La Rosita.

We love RCW. In fact, I have a bottle here, now; just plain beered out after three non-stop days.