I never thought I would start writing my food blog with a review for a restaurant however I guess u got to take the plunge at some time so why not with a restaurant review 🙂
I went to Gurulukshmi on July 19th, 2014 for lunch. I had made a reservation for 1.30pm and as my friends were late coming in from Buffalo,NY, I explained the same to the hostess who informed me that once my friends arrive, I could tell her and she would make sure we got a table.
Once my friends arrived, we were seated immediately, however there was no one to take us/guide us to our table and we were told it was table # 4 and we found the table and settled in. As soon as we sat down the server brought us the menu cards and within 2 mins came to our table and asked ‘ Are u ready to order, any suggestions’ . When we said we were waiting for someone and needed more time he walked away and returned again in 3 minutes with ‘ Are u ready to order, any suggestions’ . We did explain that we were waiting for our friend who would be there soon and we wanted to wait for him, however the server told us maybe we should order our appetizers and then if needed can order the main course once our friend arrived. We arrived the ‘Cocktail idlis in sambhar’ and 2 sodas and 1 lassi. The appetizer arrived within 3 mins and then again the server asked if we needed any suggestions and so we decided to order our main course. We ordered the ‘Paneer masala dosa’, ‘ Ghee masala dosa’ and ‘Chettinaad masala dosa’. Thereafter, our friend arrived and we asked for another menu and it seemed our server wasn’t too happy as he had to come back to take the order. The last main course item was ‘Rava masala dosa’.
The first 3 dosas arrived and then we had to wait 15 mins for the last dosa. The server then came back at 2.30pm to inform us that it was ‘Last Call’ and if we wanted to place any order we should do so immediately. We ordered ‘Filter Coffee’ for all 4 of us. However, we had to wait 20 mins for the coffee to arrive and before the coffee arrived our server slapped the tab on our table and walked away. We were surprised as he didn’t even say the usual – I am leaving the bill here, but please take your time. Once we noticed that there were people strolling in and being seated we asked another server if we could order dessert and he said we could and gave us the menus. We managed to catch our servers attention with a lot of difficulty and when we ordered a plate of ‘Rasmalai’ and ‘Gulab Jamun’, he didn’t acknowledge it but instead picked up the bill went to his station, made the changes and slapped the new bill and walked away.
Our coffees arrived followed by the dessert. We had mentioned that the 4 of us would sharing the dessert however we got only 3 spoons and thus asked for 1 more spoon. Our server came back after 10 mins and plonked 3 spoons on the table and walked away without a word.
Our server never once checked on whether the food was good, whether we wanted to order anything else. The food was finger licking good however the level of customer service provided was so poor that it made our experience awful.
Expected much more from Gurulukshmi as been a customer for quite a few years and never experienced this attitude. I guess moving to a bigger location meant they gave up on providing good customer service and made up for it by having a shorter wait time for seating and food.
My conclusion after seeing our server interact with other guests in our area is that you talk to your server in Hindi , keep asking them for suggestions (even if u know what u want and understand the menu ), don’t try to add desserts to your order once you have ordered the main course or flirt with him (like the girls on the table next to us) and you will get better service. Maybe next time we will implement these into our modus operandi and then perhaps we will get good service that will match the great food.
Gurulukshmi receives 2.5 stars in my book.
Veggie Love Notes 