The Jacksonville Confidential crew took a trip to the Southbank yesterday for brunch. Most of us had never been to the River City Brewing Company (835 Museum Cir.) breakfast so we decided to give it a whirl. It was pretty much doomed from the moment we walked in the door and requested a table for 8. The hostess, who we coined "Cruella Deville" was rather bitchy and seemed to be really put-off by our request. After about 30 minutes of waiting around, we were finally escorted to our table. Once seated we waited another 10-15 minutes for our drink order to be taken by our server Evan and then an additional 5-10 for the drinks to actually be delivered. After we quenched our thirsts we all waited around dumbfounded wondering if we could go ahead and serve ourselves at the brunch buffet.....our server never did give us the go ahead, so we took it upon ourselves to start feasting. The buffet consisted of the usual brunch items (scrambled eggs, home fries, a pasta dish, chicken, salmon, shrimp, crab legs, fruits, breads, sliced meats, waffles and an omelet station). We all loaded up our plates and sat down to taste the bounty. Needless to say, nothing was stellar. The scrambled eggs were totally gross and the chicken & salmon dishes tasted exactly alike....like shake-n-bake. The home-fries were undercooked and hard, the bacon was all clumped together and rubbery, and the sausage tasted like it was right out of the freezer. Maybe some ketchup and hot sauce would help? 4 of us requested condiments and only 2 small ramekins of ketchup and one small bottle of Tabasco were delivered at first; we eventually weaseled our way to two more ramekins. So, okay..its time for round two. We were all pretty much done with the breakfast type foods and made our way to the seafood station (which consisted of shrimp, cold crab legs, and strategically hidden hot crab legs). The seafood was pretty okay, the crab legs actually turned out to be our favorite thing on the menu and we all refilled our plates several times (we also felt that by eating so many MAYBE we could recoup the expense of the brunch - we'll get to that in a minute). As the plates stacked up (yeah, the service was totally suck ass) and our beverages continued to drain (even the water that tasted like it was right out of the St. Johns River), we were all getting a little restless and demanding. After we finished up we, of course, had to ask for our checks. The checks arrive and we were a little blindsided by the already included 19% gratuity (for our party of 8 or more). Yes 19% added for a BUFFET. AND...not only was the 19% added, IT WAS ALSO TAXED!!! Thank goodness there were customer questionnaire cards included, we all filled them out and the place got terrible reviews. And you know we took some pics too.....
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| 09-23-07 River City Brunch |
3 comments:
Their beers also are horrible. They need to take "Brewing" off their sign.
This place f*ing sucks. Staffed by the rudest people you can imagine (I think they must have hired ex-Crush Bistro staffers), and the food sucks.
So you'd naturally think "Ok, maybe it's reasonably priced then...since there has to be some reason people tolerate this abuse". But no, the prices are outrageous. Brunch winds up being like $40/per person, dinner winds up being $80+ per person, and it's all just frozen crap from Sysco.
The ONE (and I really mean ONE AND ONLY) redeeming feature is that it's a great place to watch the annual fireworks display from, you get a front-row seat. Other than that one day a year, though, stay far away.
I can't say how River Sity Brewing Company was in 2007... we neve went until sometime last year... but we have never had bad service and the brunch has always been great. Thet atmosphere is wonderful and so is the view.
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