My husband and I purchased several restaurant.com certificates a while ago and have been using them periodically. Tonight we decided to use our $25 to Furlongs. I had not looked at the certificates since we bought them well over a month ago. Our server greeted us and I immediately told her we had a $25 certificate and I was wondering how it worked and before I could pull it out of my purse she stated that it was just like any other $25 gift certificate and you just spend $25 and get $25 off. She specifically stated that you only had to spend $25. As you can see later, I definitely should have pulled out the certificate and read it for myself to refresh my memory.
We decided to order a couple of apps to share. We got the chicken wings ($12) and the grilled andouille sausage ($8). It was happy hour so they were half price. They were okay, nothing special, but way too greasy. Their draft beers were half price as well for happy hour and we each got some Abita Ambers, which were pretty good. We were not aware of these happy hour specials until we had already ordered and she told us. I really wanted to try their jambalaya ($8) and gumbo ($9) so we both decided to order bowls of each to share instead of sharing an entrée which was our initial plan, then just get a dessert, the bread pudding ($6). She brought out our jambalaya and gumbo within 2 minutes of bringing out our appetizers. I assume they were already cooked and just had to be dished, but I expected at least some spacing out since she knew they were our entrée. Again, they were both just okay, kind of bland, also a little greasy. I guess it was our fault for ordering so much with the andouille in it, but I still didn’t expect it to be that oily. We finished eating and she brought our dessert, it was very good. As she brought the dessert she asked for the certificate and said she would go ahead and adjust our bill.
She returns to the table with the certificate and says didn’t know this, but you have to spend $35 to use the certificate excluding alcohol - no one had ever told her that before. I told her we asked her before we even ordered how the certificate worked and she said we needed to spend $10 more dollars or use the certificate later. I asked her for a copy of the bill. It came to $32.33 including alcohol. They had only charged us $4.50 and $4.00 for the jambalaya and gumbo, we were not aware these were part of any happy hour pricing. I’m not actually sure why they were half-price, they weren’t listed with the appetizers and even then it was only about half of the apps that were included with the happy hour. If they had not been half-price, our food total would have been $33. If we knew we had to spend $35 and everything was half-price we would have ordered completely differently and gotten actual entrees that were full price. We were definitely not trying to be cheap!
While we were discussing what we were going to do, order something to take his mother for dinner, just use the certificate later, or get us some desserts for later, a man came up to the table, did not introduce himself, took the certificate and proceeded to read it to us. I’m assuming this was the manager. I told him I understood what it said - that was not the issue - we specifically asked before we ordered anything how it worked, obviously I should have looked at the certificate myself instead of just listening to the server. He kept interrupting me and kept telling me the certificate clearly said we had to spend $35. Again, I told him I understood that, we weren’t trying to get out of ordering enough food, that was not the issue, the only issue we have is that we asked the server before we ordered anything. He still kept showing me the certificate where it said you had to spend $35 and repeatedly told me that was part of the contract I agreed to when I bought the certificate. He was really starting to make me feel like he thought I was just being “cheap” and wanted to get everything for free. I told him again, that was fine, we could order something else, but his server did not tell us that initially. He said that all his servers know how they work and she would not have told us we only needed to spend $25. I told him that was exactly what she said and my husband finally chimed in and said that is indeed what she told us. At this point I was pretty frustrated because he kept interrupting me and was making me feel like I was trying to be “cheap” when that was totally not our intention. I asked him to just mark up the “happy hour” items we received to full price and we would be over the $35 mark. However, I’m not even sure if he was paying attention to me, because once again he was reading me word for word what the certificate said and before I could finish talking just said “I’ll work it out” and walked away. The server return with a new bill that had $25 taken off and an 18% gratuity already included (which was stated on the certificate), however, it was not on the initial bill we were provided. No complaints about that, she did do a good job, even though there was some “confusion” about the certificate.
Everything would have been fine had the manager not spoken to us the way he did. It’s hard to explain, but he made us feel like we were trying to “get away with something”. We will definitely not be returning to that restaurant again. Plus, Joe’s OK Bayou’s gumbo and jambalaya are a hundred times better tasting. We should have stuck with our initial plan to eat there.