Went to Norville Barnes the other night with a group of 12. Overall not bad and the table was properly ready when we arrived for our reservation. Everyone seemed to like the food and the menu specials looked interesting. But, I ordered the slab of ribs and was not happy with the result. The ribs were touted as St. Louis style ribs or dry-rubbed ribs. I know ribs, I love ribs, but these were not St. Louis style ribs. The rub lacked enough salt or garlic and was mostly chipolte it seemed. The ribs didn’t have any smoke to them at all like they were baked in an oven. At the very least, finish them off under a broiler. But, I digress, Its the table service that I want to discuss.
With a large group, it is incumbent on the servers to work as a team and to identify who is the responsible party or if the checks are to be split right off the bat. Our server worked hard running the food and didn’t get enough help from the rest of the staff. If she had, all the plates would have been tabled in short order. The restaurant wasn’t that busy so there was no excuse for the other staff not to jump in. The bartender handled the wine and brought the wine to those of us at one end of the table who ordered the wine for the table but asked us if anyone else wanted wine and said that she would leave some extra glasses in case anyone else wanted some. I’m sorry, but I didn’t go to a buffet. Proper service would have been to place a wine glass in front of each setting when bringing the wine out and if any patron said they didn’t want any wine then quickly take the glass back. She also should have asked each patron at the table if they would like some wine from the bottles that were ordered and not have left it up to us at one end to ask around. Also, why was there no bread brought to the table to get the appetite going?
In any case, other than a few hickups, I would rate the experience a 3 out of 5 and I will be back but I won’t be ordering the ribs.