In a city where being the exception is the only route to success, I sympathize with the challenges of proprietors of a mediocre restaurant whose only draw is location. The food is mediocre; the service the worst I have ever had the displeasure of submitting to. We told our waiter we had come to eat appetizers, drink, and sample the dessert menu. Before I chewed the last fry, another waiter came to take the empty plates. We asked to see a dessert menu. One of the waitstaff curtly refused us our dessert, suggesting our conception of a meal was nothing more than barroom ?munchy.? Frustratingly, upon trying to re-order dessert, our initial waiter re-iterated the restaurant?s need to free our two top (seating three). We should have just left. But this affront to our modest expectations of hospitality ignited within us an obstinate need to complete our meals as we had originally intended: with dessert. We noticed a smiling exception to the waitstaff who finally took our order. I found the manager and explained my consternation at the audacity of the waiter?s treating us like he was a bouncer at a college bar. Focused on cleaning his eyeglasses, he shrugged and mumbled something without making eye contact that didn?t sound like an apology but more like an admonishment for our concept of a night out, reminding me it was a Saturday night. I have never come across such a disregard of basic human hospitality and manners. I recognize the need to turn tables. But I also recognize what should be the overwhelming priority of hospitable decorum. Not only was it downright rude to threaten to kick us out of the restaurant, it doesn?t make any sense in terms of dollars. Happily, many Manhattan restaurants still prescribe to standards of service and etiquette, and we were able to salvage our Saturday night. I urge any readers of my paltry review to forego Felix?s average food and terrible service. In other words, don?t go there.
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