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Monday, March 7, 2011

The Office Bistro & Lounge - Akron

Located on a busy street in North Akron there isn't much parking for The Office.  TBG dropped me off at the door and looked for a parking spot in the rain.  As I was waiting for him I stood at the bar.  There was no hostess stand and no one helped me or asked me what I needed.  As I waited noticed how clean the place was, also how terribly bright the lights were.  When TBG finally came in we wandered into the back of the restaurant where a passing server told us to sit at a table against the wall.  We did, and we waited.  At first we were looking at the menu, then we were talking about our day.  Finally TBG said, you know we have been sitting here for 7 minutes and no one has even came to the table?  The same server that seated us showed up and asked if we had been helped.  When we said we had not he took our drink orders and left to find our server.  10 minutes later our server returned with our drinks from the bar.  He seemed in a hurry and took our appetizer order.  We were there on a Friday night, but it was still early enough that they were not full.  20 minutes later we still did not have our appetizers and no one else had talked to us.  Our drinks had been long finished and we were definitely not happy.  At one point TBG stated  how he actually felt uncomfortable there.  The lights were too bright, the paintings were cheap, and no one seemed to care we were there.  He wanted to leave way before I did.  I wanted to give them a chance and see how the food was.  Eventually we just couldn't take it anymore.  TBG got up to find a manager.  He came back and informed me there was no manager on duty.  Apparently the manager is the owner and he did not feel the need to come to work on a Friday during happy hour. Finally the bartender came over and said that we did not need to pay for our drinks, it was on him and he was sorry.  TBG tipped him because he was the only one that talked to us and he did make our drinks.  We left and had a much nicer experience at Papa Joe's (review to follow).
Now here is the review of things we could review.  My martini was very good, I got the "White Out".  It was cookies and cream.  The menu all had "Office" type names like the executive and the office flirt.  I really wanted to try the food because it all sounded good.  The app we had ordered was risotto cruets, and I was eyeing the sweet potato gnocchi for dinner.  The restaurant was smaller than it looked from the outside.  Happy hour prices are good, but only apply on the bar side of the resturant.  A martini and beer cost $6 more on the other side of the wall.  My guess is if you only want martinis and sit at the bar then this place is for you. 

Service____ 1 Chipps
Food____?? Chipps
Atmosphere____5 Chipps
Beer List____4 Chipps
Wine List____3 Chipps
Value____4 Chipps

The Office Bistro & Lounge on Urbanspoon

5 comments:

  1. Hi my name is Anthony and I am a bartender at The Office. I would like to invite you back to give you a better time the second time around if you are in the area. I'm sorry your first experience wasn't the best, but hopefully you could give us another try. Thanks for the review, hope to see you soon.

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  2. I have been to The Office on many occasion and have had nothing, but exceptional service.

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  3. We will definately go back to try the food, but I thought it only fair to tell our experience. We go to these places and make a one time assessment so I know it will not always be fair.

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  4. You should go back and try it Dave Anthony will hook up a good time

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  5. The Office Bistro is a favorite of mine so to see someone had a bad experience is shocking. I think you need to give it another try. p.s. Pricing doesn't change from bar side to restaurant side. Not sure where you got that from.

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