I have been pondering writing about this topic for quite some time now. As I like to consider myself a restaurant connoisseur, which I think comes into play because of my huge passion for food. I frequent a lot of restaurants in search of great eating, a wonderful atmosphere and a new place to add to my list of frequent faves, among other things. Well I often wonder when I go into an establishment what was the owners driving force behind opening this particular business, as well as, their ideas and creative drive for longevity.
I really enjoy the restaurant atmosphere when I find out that the establishment is black-owned. Not because I am a black woman, but because I like to see black business owners succeeding and pushing past the stereotypes such as, going out of business in less than 5 years, or horrible customer service, or lackluster food preparation, and the list goes on. Well this post came about after visiting Geo Soul in Olympia Fields, now this wasn’t my first time dining in at the restaurant. It was about my third time in a 8 month span…heyy I had to frequent a lot of other restaurants where I craved a particular item on their menu. So back to Geo Soul, my first visit to this restaurant was in January of 2011, I absolutely loved it. The food portions were wonderful, the atmosphere was simply beautiful, the location was 5 minutes from home, and the food, THE FOOD was absolutely delicious!! It wasn’t until my then 9 and 7-year-old asked to compliment the owner on the quality of food, and the decor of the restaurant that we found out the owner was a young, black, female. I immediately prayed for her success, and that she doesn’t become remiss to the susceptibility of falling prey to the demise of black businesses.
I am a Huge Supporter
Fast forward two months later, a beautiful little hidden nook in South Suburbia Olympia Fields, that’s close to home, I had to come back. Once I arrived at this new gem, that would be on my frequent fave list, I began to digress. The service was sub par, the food was inadequate and this second experience almost jilted me from ever coming back. Nonetheless, I decided to give it another chance. Heyyy, every restaurant deserves to have an off day, but since I’m a rating and review type girl, I decided to see what other people had to say. Lo and behold they experienced some of the same issues that I had on my second visit and before I completely wrote the place off, I had to give it just one more chance. Needless to say, my last and final visit was the worse ever.
In honor of my late birthday celebration, I decided to come here, since I was celebrating in mid-week and didn’t want to travel all the way downtown. When my date and I arrived at the restaurant, there is no one on the restaurant side, but there were about 8 people on the bar side. So I’m thinking, yes…this is perfect, personal attention. Boy was I wrong, it took about five minutes to be able to place an order and for them to bring bread (I absolutely love, fresh bread and butter, prior to my meal). Then I hear the sound of a microwave opening, closing, clicking, beeping, then opening and closing again. No I did not, NOT IN A RESTAURANT!! A few seconds later, here comes my bread. Did you just give me someone’s left over bread??, and you had the nerve to let me hear you heating it up.
My Are You Serious Face, when the waiter brought out my reheated bread and when I found out the Cook was also the Bartender.
Then the 1 of 8 people whom I saw at the bar when I walked in was the damn cook. Are you serious?? This fool is not serving the bar, and about to cook my food after me waiting 15 minutes with reusable bread and my salad (you can’t do anything wrong with a salad, besides served wilted lettuce, but unfortunately my salad worked for me during the wait). It took about another hour before we got our food (to be exact an hour and 30 minutes later).
…TO BE CONTINUED…..
Have you ever fell in love with a restaurant to come back to it and everything that you loved about it had dissipated?
A Lady Fyrst 