I used French Bistro the Collection and Ready for Warmer Weather from Pixels by Jen.


Journaling:
Carol chose the Olive Garden for her birthday dinner. We planned to meet her at the restaurant in Oxnard but she called and said she was in town so we decided to go the new Thousand Oaks location. I started to think, "isn't today the grand opening?" Sure enough it was, but we decided to take a chance and go. Yes, we discussed the possibility of large crowds or unprepared staff, after all it had only been open for 90 minutes when we arrived. After a ten minute wait we were seated. Our waiter arrived about ten minutes later, he greeted us and asked if we would like a complimentary glass of wine, yes we replied, then he took our drink order and left. He returned with our drinks (no wine) but without Dave’s beer, I’ll be right back with your beer. A few minutes later another waiter brought Dave’s beer, five minutes later our waiter should up with Dave’s beer, he was surprised to see Dave had got his beer. "I’ll be right back to take your order." Still no wine. Ten minutes later, no wine, no waiter. We got the attention of a manager, he asked if we need anything …ummm, yes, our wine and our waiter. He quickly got our wine and our waiter. “Sorry about the wait” our waiter said and then he took our order. Yay, we thought at least the salad and breadsticks were on the way. Well we got our bread sticks, “sorry about the wait” our waiter said; the breadsticks quickly disappeared and still no salad. Eventually another waitress noticed we were rather peeved, “is there something I can get you?” …ummm, yes, more breadsticks, our salad, our waiter. She quickly brought us more breadsticks, a few minutes later our dinner arrived. Still no salad. The manager brought out our dinner, apologized and explained that he would be taking care of dinner …then our waiter brought out the salad, “sorry about the wait” our waiter said. Poor guy, he was overwhelmed, we think his waiting days were numbered, I don’t think we were his only customers with bad service. It was definitely not a great new beginning to our new local eatery but, we did have a fun evening - we had plenty of time to chat - the food was really good and in the end out tummies were full and we were all smiles.