Earls Restaurants

I would rate zero star if I could.

For about a year, my husband and I used to have lunch at Earl's every week end since the restaurant opened. The service was usually very slow but we didn't mind as we had time and were relaxed on the week end.



One day, we picked a table in our usual area (we liked the booths close to the bar) but this particular table was still covered with crumbs and pieces of meat from the previous patrons. No matter, we had a good view on the only TV that was showing the sport event my husband wanted to watch.

The waitress, who knew us as we were regular patrons, came the first time to our table to give us menus. I asked her (nicely) to clean the table, she responded of course with a big smile. She came back without a wipe in her hand to take our drinks order and I reminded her to clean the table; same response as the first time. The waitress came back for the third time and landed our drinks on the dirt on the table. I asked her a third time to clean the table (still no wipe in her hand). Same response, same smile. She went to another table to take an order, went to the bar to place her order then disapeared. All this lasted about half an hour. I got up and went to the barman to ask him to lend me a wipe so I could clean the table myself. The barman kindly offered to do it and so he came to clean the table for us.



The waitress came back to take our food order and I told her that she should have cleaned our table (I was direct but polite).

Started a discussion where she kept insisting that there were a lot of clean tables around... meaning "you picked a dirty table, you eat on it."

I tried to remind her that hygiene and cleanliness were paramount priorities in the restaurant businessbut she kept repeating that there were a lot of clean tables when we arrived... I have to admit that I couldn't believe she was making such a disrespectful, irresponsible response (on top of everything, this girl was half my age!)

I called the manager later and had a conversation with her; she offered to invite us the next time but it will never be the same.



Since then, my husband and I have moved on to another restaurant downtown Bellevue were the staff respects us.