False Advertising

Hi - I sent a modified version of this to the restaurant (as an email and as a paper letter). I will post when/if I get an answer.

My husband and I have eaten at Feast in Bucktown quite a few times, but never on a Monday or Tuesday.

On Tuesday, 1 November, we bought a bottle of wine. We had seen the orange sign outside that said all bottles were half price, and that everyone at the table had to buy an entrée to participate. We asked our waitress if bottles were half price, and she said yes, also reiterating that everyone had to buy an entrée. We chose a $45 bottle of Pinot Noir, which she served to us without comment. We both bought entrées.

When the bill came, we noticed that we had only received 25% off our bottle. We asked the waitress, who informed us that reserve bottles were only 25% off. We asked where that was noted, and she said “our board outside.” When we left, we didn’t see anything other than the orange sign in the window.

Their website says “b.y.o. nights On Monday and Tuesday nights you can bring your own bottle of wine or get 50% off our bottle of wines as long as you purchase an entree.” But mentions nothing about only 25% off on some bottles.

Whatever the policy is, I feel like it wasn’t advertised, and that in fact, we were victims of false advertising. If ALL bottles are 50% off, then it is ALL bottles. If some are only 25% off, then we should be made aware of that. When we ordered a bottle from the 25% list, after asking the waitress about 50% off, she should have said “oh, you know bottles from this list are only 25% off.” We probably would have gotten the same bottle, but at least we would have known and had the choice.

Given this experience, I am definitely not inclined to visit this restaurant again. Am I wrong to feel so misled? It's not the dollar amount, but that there was no mention of the price differential until we got the bill.

Anyway, just wanted to share. Grumph.

update - the email bounced, and their web form to send them a comment or reservation request doesn't work.

Leek,

I would call and ask for Debbie, she is the owner. I have eaten at Feast and her other restaurants over the years, she also does a lot of catering for me. I can honestly say she is a fantasic, honest business person who values her repeat customers. I'm am sure she would appreciate hearing about your problem and how it was handled. As a business owner myself, please give her the chance to fix this for you so she can take care of the internal problem that caused it in the first place.

leek - i know exactly how you feel. i visited the original soul kitchen many years ago when it was at it's grand/damen location (i think where a tavola is now). we had a very large party (about 15 ppl), with a few of the guests visiting from out of town. we were there for a birthday dinner, and i had brought a cake for all of us to share, but we were planning to take it over to our friend's house after dinner, as she lived in the neighborhood. when i tucked the cake under the table, the waiter offered to put it in the kitchen out of our way, which was kind of him. so we enjoyed our dinner, and along the way made friendly with the table next to us as they were celebrating a b-day as well. after dinner, the waiter offered to slice our cake and bring it out to us, and we said - no, that's ok we're planning to take it to our friends house and eat it. he insisted, saying it wouldn't be any problem for them to just cut it and bring it out. so we said ok, and said we wanted to share with the next table over as well.

after a while when he presented the check, there was a HUGE 'misc' charge added to the bill - between $50/60 dollars. someone in the party took notice, and at that moment i watched the server grab the manager and they came over to defend the charge, before we even said anything to them! it was as if they knew they were doing something inappropriate. the fee was for a cake cutting charge, for us as well as for the people we shared the cake with. this charge was not listed on the menu, nor was it verbalized to us when the offer to cut it was made. and we would have been happy to take the cake home as planned. we paid the bill, gave an appropriate tip and left.

But it was such a sneaky thing to do and left me with a bad feeling about the place for a really long time. I never went back to soul kitchen after that, not in their milwaukee/damen location, nor have i visited their affliated restaurants since then.

I haven't had that kind of a reaction to a place since then (this was about 12yrs ago), and it's curious to me why it affected me so strongly.

But it's just bad customer service to do this to guests, and i doubt a place like soul kitchen/francescas would miss one customer.

A good manager will try to make amends for poor service. Hopefully Feast management will entice you to give them another try.

ciao
leesh

I do think Debbie Sharpe would be the right person to talk to. A warning: I do know some people who, for whatever reason, seem to be openly disliked by her. But my experiences have all been quite pleasant.

The situation that you described would cause me to be very upset also. After reading your post, I went to the Feast website myself and there is absolutely no mention of any limitation on their offer -- the promotion is simpy 50% off bottles of wine so long as you order an entree. If the waitress had informed me of the limitation on the discount, I would have asked to speak to a manager. Perhaps it's the "true believer" lawyer in me, but I believe that people should be held to their promises, especially when you fulfilled your end of the bargain in reliance upon that promise.

The problem here is that the restaurant is using this promotion to get people in the door (no question why in the competitive Chicago dining scene), yet leaving out a vital element of the offer (whether or not the omission was intentional I do not know). Not to mention that many people would not consider a $45 bottle of wine to be worthy of placing on a "reserve" list.

Your story reminds me of a contest a year ago in which I won a $100 gift certificate from a local, upscale furniture store (which shall remain nameless) good for any "non clearance" item in the store. I thought this was fantastic since the store sells vases, lamps, pillows and other items outside of expensive furniture. But when I got to the store, I noticed that the store had marked every single item priced less than $175 as a "clearance" item, without exception. I proceeded to ask the store manager if there were any non-clearance items under $175, and she told me that she was not aware of any, but that the store would not make an exception to allow me to use the certificate on one of the marked "clearance" items. Even though the certificate still entitled me to at least a 50% discount (a very good deal if explained up front), I felt deceived -- the store's loss since they have likely lost several future customers as a result.

As for the situation with restaurants, there are some amazing chefs in Chicago and some fantastic restauranteurs. Two years ago in January, my friends and I had a reservation at a Chicago restaurant that closed during a snowstorm, not realizing that they had a reservation on the books. We showed up, they were closed. When I called back to complain, they invited us back and comped the meal -- $300 of food and wine and apologized profusely. We proceeded to leave an extremely large gratuity and we returned to the restaurant shortly thereafter (and several times since with more friends).

There are also, unfortunately, a number of chefs and restauranteurs that need a course in customer service and business relations. Hopefully, Ms. Sharpe will rectify this problem because no good business person wants to lose valued customers. I'm curious how this works out -- hopefully well for all involved.

BR wrote:As for the situation with restaurants, there are some amazing chefs in Chicago and some fantastic restauranteurs. Two years ago in January, my friends and I had a reservation at a Chicago restaurant that closed during a snowstorm, not realizing that they had a reservation on the books. We showed up, they were closed. When I called back to complain, they invited us back and comped the meal -- $300 of food and wine and apologized profusely. We proceeded to leave an extremely large gratuity and we returned to the restaurant shortly thereafter (and several times since with more friends).

I can understand you leaving out the name of the furniture store, but you should tell us the restaurant. This kind of place deserves the recognition.

As someone that worked retail, I'm always amazed at the stories of bad customer service. Every business makes mistakes. It's going to happen to even the best. But it's how you handle those mistakes that separate the good from the bad. And in the restaurant business it's just so easy to make things right that I really don't understand it. Your $300 comped meal is a good example. Food is such a high profit item, it cost them very little in real money to make a customer for life, a customer that will be back to order more of the high profit stuff.

midas wrote:I can understand you leaving out the name of the furniture store, but you should tell us the restaurant. This kind of place deserves the recognition.

As someone that worked retail, I'm always amazed at the stories of bad customer service. Every business makes mistakes. It's going to happen to even the best. But it's how you handle those mistakes that separate the good from the bad. And in the restaurant business it's just so easy to make things right that I really don't understand it. Your $300 comped meal is a good example. Food is such a high profit item, it cost them very little in real money to make a customer for life, a customer that will be back to order more of the high profit stuff.

I absolutely agree with you. And I think it's really easy for businesses to make things right with customers (at least the normal ones not looking to take advantage of the business).

In my situation, I trekked halfway across town with friends in a snowstorm to find the restaurant closed, even though we had a reservation -- and they hadn't called us to tell us they'd be closed. When they later told us to come in and that the meal would be comped, we assumed that meant only food. They comped wine and liquor too and we certainly didn't expect them to do so. And they could not have been more apologetic for the mishap.

Oh . . . and the restaurant . . . Vermilion! 10 W. Hubbard We actually felt bad about all of the free food and wine they gave us and we went back again within a week of our first visit. Of course, it helped that we really enjoyed the food. And I made sure to tell many friends about Vermilion's great response.

Brad

I'd like to be generous and go along with the "everyone makes mistakes" sentiment but there really is no excuse for what happened. While they may have made an honest mistake by not pointing out the lesser discount on "reserve" wines (whatever that is), the unforgivable mistake was treating you like an idiot because you can't read their minds.

I took a look at their website and there is no mention of a lesser discount for certain bottles:

"On Monday and Tuesday nights you can bring your own bottle of wine or get 50% off our bottle of wines as long as you purchase an entree."

You're much kinder than I would have been. I would have at least asked to speak to the manager and I probably would have flat out refused to pay the bill without the full 50% discount. Let them call the police. There is certainly no way the server would have gotten any kind of tip from me. She is obviously trying to inflate the bill as much as possible. Why else wouldn't she have mentioned the "reserve" discount?

With so many restaurants in Chicago these days why would you ever want to go back to this place? I wouldn't waste any time contacting the owner unless you're looking to get some sort of compensation. This kind of service comes from the top; owners and managers set the tone and sneaky advertising and the sever's response to your problem with it tells me that the owner sees her customers as enemies, not friends.

leek, thank you for preventing me from making the mistake of ever eating at Feast.

Derrek -

I can assure you this was not an attempt of someone from "the top" trying to scam the public. Debbie has been in the restaurant business for years, and I'm sure she'll correct the problem given the chance. I feel as though you are being a little harsh in ripping in to Feast when you weren't present. Mistakes and bad servers happen, how it's handeled from there is the mark of service.

rhinopias -

In this case I don't know how anyone could say it wasn't a scam, given that nothing is said about the lower discount on the website, menu, or signage. The server also didn't say anything about the lower discount even though leek had specifically asked her about the discount policy:

We asked our waitress if bottles were half price, and she said yes, also reiterating that everyone had to buy an entrée. We chose a $45 bottle of Pinot Noir, which she served to us without comment. We both bought entrées.

You're right, I wasn't there and I don't know Debbie but it's pretty obvious something is wrong both with the way she conducts her business and the training she gives her staff. Feast effectively swindled $11.25 from leek. Of course I'm assuming that everything leek says is true, and given that assumption, I stand by my assessment of Debbie and her server.

I feel that if this was the case every restaurant Debbie owns would be out of business instead of being around for over ten years! Who would stand for such treatment. I am not, however, defending the server. She should be fired for either cheating or being clueless. All I'm saying is give an owner/manager a chance to rectify the situation. How can anything improve if they are not made aware of the problem?

Okay, I think we are now entering the realm of speculating about the personal character of the owner et al. without any real information to back it up. Let's see what the follow up to Leek's letter is, but let's not attack the restaurant owner before she has a chance to respond.

I've been to Feast for the Monday-Tuesday wine special on several occasions, and I can say for sure that we're told each time the reserve list was only 25% off.

I can't be certain, but I am relatively sure that the reserve page of the wine list is marked to indicate the discount will only be 25% as well. And to be fair to the resturant there are only 5 or 6 wines on the reserve list, which is clearly marked and on a seperate page from the other wine options.

It's sad that a person who admitidly hasn't dined at Feast would go out of their way to bash the owner as dishonest. Seems really out of line with the "spirit" of this site.

It's certainly reasonable for a LTH member filing a reply to assume that the OP contained accurate facts about the incident at hand. Given this assumption I find it disturbing that certain members have lashed out at a perfectly reasonable reply post based upon original facts.

Those facts as I recall them were:

1. 50% off all wine sign outside the restaurant;
2. Confirmation with server before ordering about the 50% off deal (with no metion of the 25% only off reserve wines);
3. Full compliance by the OP with the "rules" of the 50% discount (i.e.: everyone ordering an entree);
4. Bill submitted with 25% off the ordered wine with no mention whatsoever by the server after she/he confirmed the 50% when the OP first sat down to dinner;
5. Server contradicts her earlier statement about all wine being 50% off and says that reserve list is 25% off only;
6. Server lies/misleads OP about the 25% off being posted on the sign outside;
7. OP double-checks signage which indicates 50% off all wine;
8. OP checks the restaurant's website which further notes all wine 50% off.

Now, come on, those facts are pretty damning about the way things were handled at this restaurant and certainly warrants a detailed explanation by the owner or management. It takes a considerable amount of unreasonableness to bother me. But, I would be incensed if this happened to me and would never eat at the establishment again unless a reasonable and timely response and apology was forthcoming by the owner or management.

Certainly, one could amend their observations about this restaurant and its owner after seeing what additional facts, apologies, etc. come to light. But, based upon the facts as we know them today the reply poster offered a fair and reasonable observation of the incident and how he/she would have reacted and shouldn't be lambasted for it.


Bster

I don't think that comment was directed at the original poster. But in any case, it was out of bounds and so were the followup comments aimed at that poster. If you have actual info about Feast to post, post that, but let's not get into personal stuff.

I agree with you, Bstr, that we should assume that the report of the OP is accurate, but assumption is not proof - though based on some of the comments on this thread, e.g., "leek, thank you for preventing me from making the mistake of ever eating at Feast" it appears that Feast has been proven guilty in the eyes of some the posters. I think that more would have been accomplished if Leek would have recounted the experience without identifying the restaurant - at least not until the management had the opportunity to rectify or explain the situation to Leek.

I do not condemn leek for identifying the restaurant - Leek was upset and it is only natural to want to share her experience. I do think, however, that we this forum would be better if we all are careful to verify that we have been aggrieved before we identify a restaurant or employee by name.

I had a terrible experience at the precursor to Feast (was it "Commune?") which was the result of inexcusable customer service. I went there for drinks with one other friend - we were drinking wine. A third friend arrives about an hour later and she orders a beer. One hour and a half later, we leave but, by which point, the beer drinking friend had had another beer - two - in total. (I, along with my other friend, had continued to order exclusively wine.)

We read the bill and it was apparent that the bartender charged us for FIVE beers. We pointed out the error, expecting a routine response along the lines of "oops," "wrong check" or "sorry, let me fix that" or something. No. First, he accused my beer-drinking friend of putting down five beers in an hour and a half(!) and then lying about it. He then states that he couldn't take these beers off our check because if he did, they would be taken off of his paycheck. At that point, we asked to speak to the manager, who was one of the most unprofessional persons I've encountered. Her solution - to offer to dock a beer off the check! Obviously, she was not too swift as well because with disputes like this, where a customer is charged something he or she did not receive, there is no halfway. However, she would not budge. It was unbelievable. We just paid the proper amount <I>sans</I> the extra beers, left no tip and have never been back to a Debra Sharpe property again - not even Half and Half for a coffee.

rhinopias wrote:I feel that if this was the case every restaurant Debbie owns would be out of business instead of being around for over ten years! Who would stand for such treatment.

A lot of Debbie Sharpe's restaurants have gone out of business - Confusion, Commune, and I think one other place before Feast moved in. Am I missing any?

Unknown:

I think it's important to see what Feast management does here in response to the complaint by the OP.

However, I have to disagree with you that the OP should have left the restaurant's name out of the post. It's important to know when a diner has been wronged or has had an unpleasurable experience someplace to give other members a heads-up about a particular establishment before one goes and spends their money at a place that might not treat them so well. Just as it's equally important for a post to include the name of a place where a member has had a wonderful experience.

I look forward to seeing what response to OP gets from Feast - should be interesting. It is also very important that we see how Feast deals with this complaint. We all recognize that places can suffer off nights or have a bad server that does not reflect the very essence of the establishment.

As for me, and I'm just speaking for myself here, there is fierce competition amongst restaurants in Chicago in general for dining customers. This is especially true on historical off-nights during the week (like Sunday through Tuesday or Wednesday in most places). When restaurants display various deals on these nights it is to undoubtedly primarily to attract new clientele to their place. When this is done, as it was here, by offering a 50% discount on wine, that is fairly attractive to most diners who otherwise may not give the place a second thought on a regular night.

Definitely for me, and I imagine for most diners, when I see a promotional deal of 50% off bottles of wine at a particular restaurant, I am persuaded to dine there in large part because I can go ahead and order a bottle or two of special wine(s) that would ordinarily be out of my price range. The fact that I could get a $30 bottle of wine for $15 wouldn't really appeal to me that much. It seems here that the very wines for which customers might have been persuaded to give the restaurant a chance were not available at the 50% discount. And, this fact was not posted outside the restaurant, where it should have been, to allow potential diners to make an informed decision as to whether the promotional deal was worth a visit.

My problem with Feast is that it appears that the OP and her party were led to dine at this place because of the promotional deal displayed on the front window - it appears that the OP was led to dine at Feast under false pretenses, which makes me furious and completely uninterested in patronizing Feast.

However, we shall await Feast's response to the OP and I reserve the right to alter my opinion on Feast, and whether to dine there, based upon said response.

Bster

Very well put, Bster -

On the Feast website http://www.feastrestaurant.com/feastivities.html they advertise 50% off wines on Monday night (On Monday and Tuesday nights you can bring your own bottle of wine or get 50% off our bottle of wines as long as you purchase an entree) and make no reference that their more expensive "reserve" wines are only 25% off. Even if they have it disclosed on their menu, it is unfair -to say the least. It sounds like a classic bait and switch scheme.

But let's wait to see what response Leek gets from the management.

leek, have you heard from Feast yet? They've had 4 days now to respond to your email. I'm curious if they ever did.

leek wrote:update - the email bounced, and their web form to send them a comment or reservation request doesn't work.

Unclear to me if Leek decided to f/u by other means or not...

z

The email and comment form mail bounced, and I sent a postal letter. It was put in a post box on Saturday. Assuming that it didn't get picked up until Monday (I have no idea if it made the Saturday pick up) I wouldn't expect the letter to get to the restaurant until Wednesday at the earliest.

I'm sorry for being disruptive. I probably shouldn't have named the restaurant (though doing so did get people to tell me the name, so I addressed the letter to Debbie Sharpe, Owner at Feast's address)

A lot of Debbie Sharpe's restaurants have gone out of business - Confusion, Commune, and I think one other place before Feast moved in. Am I missing any?[/quote]


Tanzy (on North near Wells, IIRC it's now an Italian place [Dinotto's?])

--
Best
Greg

A lot of Debbie Sharpe's restaurants have gone out of business

This reflects less on their quality than their owner's tendency to want to tinker with new concepts.

FWIW, ConFusion was the restaurant that really made Bucktown/Wicker Park into a dining destination.

A lot of LEYE restaurants have gone out of business, too (Fritz That's It, Jonathan Livingston Seafood, Papagus, Avanzare and others), but I wouldn't say that means the company isn't successful.

LAZ wrote:

This reflects less on their quality than their owner's tendency to want to tinker with new concepts.

I don't know about that. I know quite a few people who have tried her various restaurants (ConFusion, Tanzy, Commune), myself included, who were underwhelmed by the quality in relation to the price. I don't think it's a coincidence that those restaurants, save Feast, eventually peetered out.

A lot of LEYE restaurants have gone out of business, too (Fritz That's It, Jonathan Livingston Seafood, Papagus, Avanzare and others), but I wouldn't say that means the company isn't successful.

That's true. However, LEYE still has quite of stable of restaurants that have withstood the test of time. Debra Sharpe has one- Feast. The jury is still out on the lasting effect of Half and Half and The Goddess and the Grocer.

Hi

apparently my email did go through on Friday, I just got an email from Debra Sharpe. In it she apologized for not getting back to me sooner saying

time escapes

and also apologizing for the misunderstanding I had regarding the wine specials. She said their servers are well rehearsed about it, but perhaps the server's explanation was not clear enough. She also said that she is

always one to keep the peace

and because she doesn't want to lose me as a customer she would be more than happy to send me a gift certificate to cover

the balance of the discount.

[edited by mods and LeeK so that entire email from Ms Sharp was not included]

Maybe I'm being sensitive, but she didn't really say you were right. She said, I'm sorry you misunderstood, (Which is the type is the type of apology that I politely refer to as "Sorry you're a monkey") and her servers are well rehearsed and couldn't possibly have been mistaken.

And a gift certificate for the difference means that you have to go back there to spend the money you already spent.

I'm not impressed.

What kafein said. In Leek's situation, I would not be running back to Feast with my eleven dollar gift certificate in hand.

The best advertisement is word of mouth. She blew it!