The Pump Room - what the heck!

My fiance and I are old souls. Rather than hitting the clubs with our peers, we prefer a nice old school cocktail or wine at places ranging from a dive bar or a place where "clubby" refers to gofing as opposed to music.

We had a wonderful dinner at RL Friday night - Steak Diane for him and Dover Sole for me (we apparently were jonesing for tableside preparation) and everything was spot on. The food was fantastic and the service was top notch. Professional without being stuffy. I had a perfectly mixed Tom Collins prior to dinner and then, when our bottle that we chose was out, the sommelier recomended a perfect zinfandel.

The fiance wanted to have some champagne as a nightcap. We tried the Signature Room, but it was too crowded at that point. We'd recently watched North by Northwest and decided that the Pump Room was a no brainer. When we arrived, two people were slouching near what looked like a host station. Fiance asked where we should go if we just wanted a cocktail. I'm not kidding, the one host lazily said "There's a CVS down the road that sells champage." Chuckling to ourselves, we cleared up the misunderstanding and proceeded to sit in the lounge. Maybe we should have thought of it as a harbinger of what was to come...

Maybe it was by comparison to RL. Maybe it was because there was a major baseball series in town with a lot of people that had been at the game. But there were hoards of loaded guys reeling about the bar area in jeans, t-shirts, ball caps and sneakers. I am such a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, but there is a time and a place for everything. I guess it would have been fine had they not been crashing around and shouting. It was to the point that they were harassing older couples trying to have a drink and swearing like sailors. I know establishments shouldn't be faulted for the conduct of its patrons. I definitely feel though that this was to the point where there needed to be some sort of reaction.

Anyway, on to the drink. After waiting a very long time, a ditzy but friendly girl comes over, blathers on about how busy they are and then, proceeds to take our drink order. We order a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Rose. After waiting twenty five minutes, we flag down a girl and ask for the manager. Come to find out it was her. We explained that we had ordered a bottle, had not received it and our waitress had disappeared. She leaves and then, returns with the bottle, chilled glasses - no ice bucket - opens it and pours and then, runs away. We realize after half a glass the glasses may have been cold but the bottle was not. We, then, flag down a man who appeared to be the sommelier and let him know that the bottle is very warm. By this time an ice bucket was brought by a busser. He doesn't offer to take back the bottle and proceeds to offer us a desert, which I appreciated but did not seem to be the appropriate remedy. We finish our warm champange, which chilled to an appropriate level by bottle's end, so at least we were able to savor that. Neither the manager, the sommelier and the waitress stopped back by to see if the situation had improved.

Upon receipt fo the bill, fully realizing we should have been more insistent about sending it back even though we had half a glass since they had not let us taste it. I think of myself as fairly forgiving so long as the waitstaff is nice and are trying, the atmosphere is nice (which, save for the drunks, was) and the drink is good. It was shocking that a place which holds itself out to be an elegant, Chicago institution had such appalingly bad service.

RL
115 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL
60611

The Pump Room
1301 N. State Parkway
Chicago, IL
60610

As a matter of follow up, lesson learned...check your credit card statement.

Not trying to be cheap, we did not leave a tip due to our experience. We did leave a note (albeit on Fiance's business card, because that's all we had) indicating that we were not attempting to stiff the waitstaff, but due to our subpar experience, we weren't leaving gratuity. Fiance also left a voicemail yesterday detailing what had happened.

Today, the kind folks at the Ambassador called to follow up on the voicemail (turns out they never received the note regarding gratuity) and in conversation it comes out that there was thirty dollars of gratutiy entered on our tab! This is borderline larceny. I could not believe it.

To the credit of the Ambassador, they removed the entire charge and were very appologetic regarding the filled in tip. Apparently, the woman could not have been nicer or more professional.

But bottom line, I could not believe that someone would add their own gratuity when we clearly had not left a tip. Lesson learned - check your charge statement in the future!

That is absolutely appalling. I cannot believe that anyone would be rude enough to add their own tip to a bill just because they didn't receive one. Isn't that against the law??

Suzy

sdritz wrote:That is absolutely appalling. I cannot believe that anyone would be rude enough to add their own tip to a bill just because they didn't receive one. Isn't that against the law??

Suzy

Yes, it is against the law. Credit card holders are only responsible for any amount they signed for. The merchant is required to produce the signed copy if requested and, if you choose, you can press charges. About 6 years ago I caught, fired, and prosecuted an employee for this. They had rung up 5 of their cash tables as credit cards using numbers that had been taken from other reciepts (never let a full number remain on a reciept).

Flip

Zinfandel is my favorite American wine, Ridge my favorite label. I especially like the big barolo-esque ones at 15+ alcohol. And my grandfather from Marseille usually drank red wine with each meal unless we were in a region of France noted for a particular non-red wine. And I know the zinfandel grape inself can be failrly versatile,

but how can Dover sole be matched with zinfandel?

MLS wrote:but how can Dover sole be matched with zinfandel?

I assume it was matched with the Steak Diane? (The trouble with ordering a bottle when the table has ordered opposing entrees.)

Flip wrote:

sdritz wrote:That is absolutely appalling. I cannot believe that anyone would be rude enough to add their own tip to a bill just because they didn't receive one. Isn't that against the law??
Suzy

Yes, it is against the law. Credit card holders are only responsible for any amount they signed for. The merchant is required to produce the signed copy if requested and, if you choose, you can press charges.
Flip

I am pretty sure that twice in the last six months or so when I put a ten-dollar tip on a credit card charge slip at a restaurant, another ten dollars beyond the total was charged to my card. I am going to be more careful in the future about holding on to my copy of the charge slip until the charge appears on my bank statement.

We keep all our receipts until the charge appears on our paper bill. You just never know - accidents happen.

At least one restaurant that we know is honest has very bad skills with the credit card on take out orders. I suspect no one ever puts in a tip, but I do. So they were charging us twice, once with tip, once without. Completely accidentally, I am quite certain. I gave up, and for the most part now I tip with cash on takeout or delivery orders. They never did this on dine-in orders.

Yes, aschie30, the Zin was matched with the steak diane. I had a glass of it after I had finished the dover sole, MLS, as we were enjoying our desert. My fiance can drink quite a bit more than I can, so I decided to save myself for the champagne and let him choose something that went with his meal, knowing I would only have a glass or so.

As a matter of further follow up, The Ambassador credited our account for the full amount. It still leaves such an awful taste in my mouth, though, that I checked my statement this morning after buying diner last night at our corner bar where we are regulars (tip appropriately left to commend what is always wonderful service). Of course, nothing was amiss as these are good people, but still. This type of incident makes one mighty paranoid.

Rather than stiff the dover sole diner, a complex, but not too heavy, pinot noir might have been chosen that would have been fine with steak and passable with the sole. Choosing a zin, a pommard, or a barolo seems like such safe choice for steak, but dramatically bad for the sole.

A more daring sommelier might have suggested a Bandol red, a rose de provence, or any number of Washington pinots.

MLS wrote:Rather than stiff the dover sole diner, a complex, but not too heavy, pinot noir might have been chosen that would have been fine with steak and passable with the sole. Choosing a zin, a pommard, or a barolo seems like such safe choice for steak, but dramatically bad for the sole.

A more daring sommelier might have suggested a Bandol red, a rose de provence, or any number of Washington pinots.

I gather from reading greygardens' follow-up post that she passed on wine with her entree and the zin was recommended for the Steak Diane. I can't imagine any sommelier recommending a zin to go with both the Dover Sole and the Steak Diane. That's like wine pairing 101. And RL is a good place, with very sophisticated clientele (presumably with their own well-stocked wine cellars), so the sommelier wouldn't have made that mistake.

That's exactly what happened, aschie. The sommelier could not have been more wonderful at RL. My fiance can easily polish off the bestter part of a bottle himself. I can not and decided to forego the bottle (save for a small glass with desert), as I anticipated champage as a nightcap.

Don't let your being enamored with the restaurant cloud your vision on the sommelier. Unless greygardens specifically said she was not having wine with her entree, by suggesting the zin, the sommelier made that choice for her.
A less aggressive red (a pinot or a Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape-both perfectly good with the steak) might have worked better. The sommelier made the easy choice and ignored one diner.

I don't know how many other ways I can say it...it was not my plan to have wine with dinner. Therefore, it was not ordered with my tastes and dinner in mind, which was clearly communicated to all involved. So, no one was ignoring the meal/tastes of one diner! I only at the last minute once I had eaten my dinner decided to have a small glass with desert, because there was enough for two small glasses and my dining companion enjoyed it and implored me to have a taste.

It wasn't the purpose of this post to ignite a discussion regarding the service at RL, which we viewed as lovely, or have any of our wine that we had with dinner be the subject of criticism. My purpose was to vent a little bit about some awful service and warn others to check their statements to make sure they didn't have the same issue we did!

MLS wrote:Don't let your being enamored with the restaurant cloud your vision on the sommelier. Unless greygardens specifically said she was not having wine with her entree, by suggesting the zin, the sommelier made that choice for her.

Wow, I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

greygardens (a few posts above) wrote:My fiance can drink quite a bit more than I can, so I decided to save myself for the champagne and let him choose something that went with his meal, knowing I would only have a glass or so.

greygardens (two posts above) wrote:The sommelier could not have been more wonderful at RL. My fiance can easily polish off the bestter part of a bottle himself. I can not and decided to forego the bottle (save for a small glass with desert), as I anticipated champage as a nightcap.

What we have, folks, from greygardens, is:

1) Sommelier at RL wonderful.

2) Greygardens not as big of drinker as fiance, so decided to forgo wine with entree (except for small glass with dessert).

3) As one entree need only be paired with wine -- Steak Diane -- greygardens says that sommelier paired zin with Steak Diane.

There's the scoop, the whole scoop.

I'm not sure "Knowing I would only have a glass or so" is the same as "forego wine with entree." FYI-dessert is not part of the entree.
Thanks for the scoop though. I'm notice it gets more revisionist with each telling.

Let's end this with "unless greygardens specifically said she was not having wine with her entree," deny or don't reply!

Can't we just trust the OP...please

Dinner RL = good.

Drinks at Pump Room = bad with an appaling attempt by a staff member to fleece us from some cash.

Finis.