First National Center Great Hall

"I have emailed and directly sent a message through The Great Hall website and received no reply. The food was okay. The tea was good. The service was subpar and how our situation was handled was completely unacceptable. I wish I would have stayed and asked to speak to a manager but honestly I was so taken aback that a manager wasn't even offered to come speak to us. On OpenTable, it stated that gratuity was only charged for tables 8 and over. We only had 6 people. When I brought this up, they said they were sorry their website was wrong but that everyone is charged 20% gratuity no matter their size. So we asked if the table of 2 girls next to us was charged 20% gratuity and she said yes. Which I'm sorry, I have a hard time believing. They told me it states that on OpenTable about gratuity being charged 20% for everyone. I pulled up my app and showed on my reservation that it clearly states gratuity is only charged for tables 8 and over. I had 6 people for tea. I said I don't mind paying the cost, this is a special occasion. But it is something I would have liked to be prepared for in the cost going in. Our original server also did not inform us that we could get plain water for free. She only offered sparkling or still. That was another added expense we were not expecting. We also ordered a charcuterie and cheese board. We were missing 5 items on the board. No apologies, no explanation, nothing. When we ordered the board, our server literally stated "Would you like crackers with it? It already comes with crackers but just wanted to make sure". So we said yes that would be great. Turns out, you can either have crackers OR the toasted focaccia . We were not informed of this. We weren't asked if we would prefer crackers INSTEAD of the toast. Because we would have said no. Now back to our OpenTable reservation. I stated that it was a special event, a birthday. The two girls sitting next to us also were celebrating a birthday. How did I know? They received a special birthday treat and candle. When I asked at the end she said well it need to be stated on OpenTable reservation. So once again I showed her where it stated "This is a birthday celebration". Once again, no apology, not even an attempt at an excuse. Just well she should have gotten a dessert. They didn't even offer to send us home with one. Needless to say, this was a one and done experience for us. At least at this establishment. I expected to pay around $350-360. But was astounded that we ended up spending over $100 more than expected due to the gratuity and water. Also the lack of caring from the servers. We did notice that a wedding was occurring behind us. I believe this took precedent. I don't like to complain. But for this experience and price point I was severely disappointed. I also have screenshots of my reservation where the gratuity statement was stated on tables of 8 and over, where it stated it was a birthday celebration, and I have a screenshot of what all should come on the charcuterie and cheese boards as well as what was actually given to us."

Miranda Colangelo

"For tellers, I truly expected far better than this. I am so disappointed. To start, it took 20 minutes to receive our tea pots and Prosecco. At one point I asked for water which took roughly an additional 30 minutes. The savories were disgusting. The chicken curry was a horrid flavor as well as the apple butter on the prosciutto and Brie. The breads were stale and the croissants were dry. There was also barely anything on each savory. However, the pimento was the best bite for the savory and not entirely off putting. Scones traditionally are served two per person. We were given two scones which were two separate flavors; therefore, we had to split them. We also had to share our clotted cream and mandarin jam… sad. Although, the scones were the best bite overall and the jam was quite good. The clotted cream was traditional and that was a great surprise. The sweets were far below standard. Once again, we were given two different flavored macarons which were already mini in size. We had to split these so we could both try each flavor. The raspberry one was quite good. I’m assuming these may not be made and are bought though, but I could be wrong here. The cannolis were a horrid flavor. My tea guest and I both could not take more than a bite. The chocolate on the strawberries was not good. The cocoa dusted flourless chocolate truffles were okay. The cocoa got all over our hands as we were not given any forks. My early grey tea was very delicious and my tea guest enjoyed her jasmine green tea. I appreciate that the Prosecco was complimentary, but we probably should have been carded for this as we are both in our early 20’s with my tea guest only recently being of age to drink alcohol. The atmosphere was very good, per usual. The holiday decorations were beautiful. The server was quite friendly although she did take forever and never gave us the extra glass of Prosecco we were promised as an apology for the untimely manner in which we received a part of our service, although I cannot remember particularly why this extra glass was offered by the server. I will say that she seemed to be the only one serving our reserved tea area and other guests were in attendance, so I believe the issue may be with staffing and not really her fault. However, if you are going to require your guests adhere to a dress code, your staff should as well. we frequent here for dinner and I really enjoy the previous times we’ve dined here. Also something to note is that according to Yelp we were to be charged an 18% gratuity automatically. However, when we were charged our bill, we ended up being charged 20%. I would love to come again in hopes that these issues may be remedied. The location is beautiful and typically a great place to dine. This is not the service we’ve come to except from this business."

Allie Lock

"My wife and I went here for the afternoon tea as part of our anniversary celebrations. The service was very good, when things were running behind for our food they gave us complementary drinks. The hall itself is immensely impressive but our seating, while comfortable, lacked intimacy, it felt like being at a business meeting. The food fell flat. It wasn't terrible but we've definitely had better for the same price. The scones were very plain, I'm not sure if they were supposed to have flavor but they tasted like slightly sweet biscuits. There was no clotted cream or lemon curd to go with the scones, only butter. We ordered the charcuterie board. It wasn't bad but a couple of the slices of toasted bread were stale. Overall I'd recommend The Great Hall for the experience but don't expect much from the food."

Joshua Chumbley