STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

We went to Soho 323, this restaurant/bar/club in New York City, this weekend.  A friend was celebrating a birthday there.  After looking at the website and seeing that they served sushi, two of my friends and I decided to show up early and eat there.  It was completely empty when we first got there so we selected a corner booth and sat down.  The waitress came up to us and we ordered drinks and edamame right away, but didn't know what sushi we wanted yet.  She came back and we went to order and my friend and I ended up ordering the same things, so we decided we would share and get two more things.  So, we asked her to give us another minute.  She just never came back.  It literally took about a half hour for her to come back and take our order and it wasn't busy at all.  It was obvious that we were going to order food and weren't just taking up a table to drink.  So, she took our order finally and then another waitress came up to our table and asked us if we would mind moving because a large party was coming in.  The only table left at this point was crappy plus we were waiting for more people and needed the room so we said no.  Plus we had already ordered and hadn't eaten yet. 

A table on the other side that had just sat down offered to move instead, leaving plenty of room for the big group (the tables are along a long booth with pillows and stuff).  However, our waitress came back and told us we HAD to move because the people were promoters (you would think promoters would care about people having a good time in the club).  She was really snotty about it.  The worst part is the people didn't use the table that the other people gave up (they ended up seating other people there after we moved).  So, they literally made us move because those people wanted the corner of the booth.

We ended up at this table where the seats across the table are really far from each other and it sits 2 people on each side.  Since there was 3 of us, it really sucked because one person had to sit far away and we couldn't hear each other.  We ended up all squeezing on one side after we ate.  When our friends came, we didn't even stay that long.  We ended up leaving the waitress a crappy tip.  My one friend and I didn't want to leave anything at all, but our other friend felt too uncomfortable with that so we did leave her something.  I didn't think she deserved anything at all:  she was snotty, she took forever to take our order, she made us move just because someone else wanted our spot, and she didn't even offer us a free drink or bring out an extra sushi roll for our trouble.  I have worked in restaurants before and the only situation where I have asked someone to move is if they just sat down and that was the only table that could accommodate a big group.  I would imagine if I was a waitress and I made people who had already ordered move (especially to a much worse table), I would offer them a free appetizer or drink or something.  At the very least, I would have been nice and apologetic about it instead of being like "you have to move."

Ugh!  So never going back there!