Restaurant Tip

You've heard of a new restaurant opening up that's supposed to be amazing. You're dying to try it so you rush out the minute they open, have a horrible experience and vow never to return again. Sound familiar? My tip to you, as hard as it will be to restrain yourself, is to wait at least 3-4 weeks (or longer) after a restaurant has opened to visit. Let other people have the bad experience while all of the kinks are worked out and you can saunter in to reap the benefits and have a good experience to talk about instead of telling all of your friends NOT to try the new hip spot in town because everything sucked. You know what I'm talking about too - the servers are clueless, they ignored you, the food took over a half hour to get to your table and after all that, it wasn't even very good and you think it was overpriced. You go home totally bummed and complain to your friends. I can't recall one time in recent memory where a friend has told me about their experience at a new restaurant being good. Even if it wasn't terrible the response is usually something along the lines of, "Eh, it was okay."

Bill and I have gotten burned too many times and (I think) have finally learned our lesson. There are currently 3 new restaurants in town that we have yet to try but know of people who have tried them all. They all went either on the first night it opened or shortly thereafter and based on their reviews, we are waiting. 6 months and counting in one case (okay, maybe we're just lazy). So wait if you can. The restaurant may thank you too for the good review versus the bad one you would have given. And if it's still not good even after waiting, at least you gave them a fighting chance to improve.