Lisa Ngo
3 months ago
I WISH I could give 5 stars. Really looking forward to take advantage of the 1/2 off a la carte menu that is offered every Thursday evenings. We called around 4:40pm to confirm about this happy hour (it seemed too good to be true!), and were informed that the entire bar was open at that time, but nothing is guaranteed upon our arrival (as expected). We arrived shortly before 5pm and were surprised to be informed that some people were just seated and the bar is currently full. We thought to ourselves “wow! How unlucky” but proceeded to grab a bottle of wine in the dining area to wait for a bar seat anyway. The biggest disappointment as we sat across the bar was witnessing 2 parties hold off a total of 4 seats right before our eyes as we sat and waited for over 30 minutes. As first time customers, I felt extremely disregarded. I have to say, allowing people to hold off multiple seated was very unmindful based on the fact that the happy hour special occurs on a “first come, first serve” basis - and we arrived significantly earlier than the other 4 people who had the privilege of having their seats held. For this reason, Lenoir should strongly consider only seating when a FULL party is present, and not permit individuals to literally hoard seats. It is even more disappointing as we had planned our entire week around this dinner and even anticipated the possibility of having to wait given the bar was ACTUALLY full. Just to provide some additional insight, the bar is not big. It includes a total of 10 seats. So the fact that 4 seats were being held by other individuals for such a long period of time while my partner and I had to sit, watch, and wait, simply seemed unfair. This left us with quite a feeling of distain. On the brighter side, once we were seated, we experienced a fantastic meal. The menu at hand was creative and well thought out. We ordered the crab fingers and had to get another - it was so tasty. Our steak was cooked a perfect medium rare with a delicious crust on the edges. I was skeptical about the crudo (blueberry ponzu - very interesting), but it came out fresh, bright, acidic (but not too acidic) and overall well balanced. We couldn’t have asked for a better menu - the food is what is preventing me from providing anything lower than 3 stars but if we felt that the first come first serve rule was respected, Lenoir would undoubted score a full 5 stars based on food alone. Unfortunately, we left feeling that our prompt arrival and time was disrespected. I highly advise the crew to take this into serious consideration, and I would caution customers coming in for happy hour to brace themselves for this type of wait if it ever happens again.
