Metropolis Cafe

On Thursday evening, I ventured over to the South End to take the opportunity of restaurant week to try out a place that I had been meaning to go for quite some time: Metropolis Cafe.  (http://www.metropolisboston.com/) I would love to devote this post to the cute little coziness of this place and how it gave you a perfect little view of Tremont Street that was ideal for people watching.  I'd also love to tell you about their great wine selection and reasonable prices.  However, the staff (with the exception of our waitress, she was awesome) was so blatantly rude that I will most certainly not be going back here.  


I was with my cousin who was in town for a couple of days and we had a 7:30 PM reservation.  We arrived earlier than expected and spotting some open tables, politely asked if it were possible to be seated earlier.  The hostess retorted in a rather snooty tone, "we can seat you...at 7:30".  She rolled her eyes and walked away.  A little rude, yes, but no biggie, we got seats at the bar and decided to have a glass of wine to catch up.  Upon reviewing the wine list, we each selected a wine that was a unique blend of "garnacha, tempranillo and syrah with a dash of cabernet sauvignon".  After the bar tender slowly looked us up and down with disgust (why I ask?  we are nice, decent people who were dressed appropriately and are friendly.  Why the look of disgust?) he asked for our drink order and here is our interaction:


My Cousin: "I'd like the, umm, I'm not really sure how to pronounce this, is it Ludovicus?"
Snooty Bartender: (Chuckles to himself and shakes his head) "No" 
My Cousin: "Oh really?  Sorry, how do you pronounce it?"
Snooty Bartender: "I have no idea"


And with that he was gone.  Seriously?  That is how you treat your guests?  And if you claim to be a wine bar, how can you not know about the wine that you have on hand?  I can understand if we were rude or wearing pajama bottoms or running shorts or something that you shouldn't wear to a nice place but c'mon. I don't pay my hard earned money to be treated rudely.  It didn't even matter that the dinner was good.  It also didn't matter that our waitress was super sweet and very knowledgeable.  The first impressions are what makes a place shine and it can somehow even make the food taste better and the experience of dining out truly an experience. Metropolis Cafe, in all of your pretentiousness, you will not be receiving another visit from me.  There are far better places in this fine city that will gladly take my money and do so with a smile. 


Update (3.29.10): Bright and early this morning, I received an email of apology from a partner at the Aquitaine Group (the company that owns Metropolis Café as well as a couple of other restaurants in Boston).  As a blogger, I feel that it is my job to provide honesty and truth in all content of my blog and that is a responsibility that I certainly don’t take lightly.  Along with the story of my experience with Metropolis, I also feel that it is equally important for me to share updates.  Thank you to Jeff for reaching out to me this morning and assuring me that the service I received was not standard.