Stone Park- good food/bad service?

wake up on the wrong side of the hangover, DR? :shock:

Come on, guys. We shouldn't feed the trolls. It just encourages their self-destructive habit.

I feel ya, pastoralia. I loved Stone Park when it first opened. And they were very nice when I brought my sleeping infant in a stroller -- no attitude. But I've had some weird stuff happen in the last year or so. One example: some months ago, they were out of the stout my husband wanted. The waitress offered us a strawberry lambic, and insisted it was basically identical to a stout. I don't usually correct or argue with servers, but I had to tell my husband, "It's not really." The waitress insisted it was pretty much the same beer. "Go ahead and order it," I told hubby. "I think you'll like it, but it's nothing like stout." He enjoyed it, but... nothing like stout, as I'd said. Don't they train these people? Why would someone be so insistent about something they know nothing about? I imagined a "Glengarry Glen Ross" style pep talk before opening: "Today we're selling the lambic. No matter what they ask for, tell them lambic is the same, only better!"

I also had some meals that were really undercooked or oversalted or otherwise obviously "off." I think they're just getting sloppy. I don't really blame them; they're packed all the time, so it's not affecting their business. I don't think they miss losing a few infrequent customers like me, when their increasingly slapdash cooking is helping them turn tables fast and rake in the dough.

I had exactly one experience inStone Park and it was near 2 years ago. One of those celbratory nights where budget considerations were out the window. I took the credit card out and it was one of the worst meals ever; the food was mediocre and service bad. From what I read from the now defunct thread I am glad that the service was not worse on that particular night and that the little visitors did stay in hiding.

Enough said.

Gawd - how tiresome these Stone Park hate threads are. I guess my wife and I and the hundreds of other happy diners who move through SP during the week are delusional (to plagiarize a Barack Obama quote).

No restaurant in these times moves to celebrating it's 4th Anniversary if things were as portrayed by the vocal minority on this board.

Drunken Revival that is a pretty hot picture. I love it.

I've eaten at Stone Park over 100 times. I've sat in every section of the restaurant. And I've never received anything even approaching bad service.
I'm beginning to think the place is some kind of Rorschach test that alienates a certain personality type, though by what means I can't say. The upside of reading all these naysayers is the thought that I will always be able to find a seat at the bar.

raw wrote: Why does Stone Park Cafe smoether EVERYTHING with bacon "lardon"? All that food topped with fat cut from a pig's belly is a huge turn off.

(And no, Carnivore, the answer is not "because it tastes good.")

At any other place, that would be my answer. There, maybe it's to provide camouflage for other little brown things around that size...