Fran's Filling Station

11/18/11

Not good.

by meckl at Citysearch

Like the poster below, I registered just to write this review. My experience was that bad.

Would love to rate the food...but never got any (except for cold, crusty bread that seemed to have been soaked in olive oil).

Showed up at 6:45 on Saturday night with a reservation. After ordering food and getting our drinks we never saw our waiter again except for a "drive-by" ("Everything OK here?" As he ran by without waiting for an answer.) After an hour with no food and no drinks past the first round I got up and went to the bar to pay for the drinks and left. While we were there we saw several waiter-less tables, including one with a dude who went to the bar to get a beer for himself since no one came his table to ask if he needed another drink.

Based on other reviews, it appears Fran's never got their act together. There are WAY too many restaurants in Charlotte (and Dilworth) to put up with this. Terrible start to the weekend.

To paraphrase Keyshawn, "COME ON, FRAN!"

Won't be back.

11/14/11

Never Again

by GingerCourt at Citysearch

I felt so strongly about this experience that I had to register and leave a review. I've been to Fran's several times but after this last experience, I plan to never go back. (And I'd also like to mention that I have hardly ever sent back food.)

We ordered the high dollar special and after waiting a long time to get the food, the potatoes were cold, the meat was overcooked and tough, and the salad was wilted--it's like it had just been pulled out of a refrigerator and warmed over. Okay...this is a totally fixable problem but when we told our server, it's almost like they were shaking in their boots to tell Fran. After the server went back and forth from the kitchen to our table several times and stating that 'this must be our first time because we obviously don't know Fran', we cancelled the order all together and just got a bottle of wine.

We later got a complimentaty plate of bread with a comment that Fran had "regrouped" and gotten over us sending the plate back earlier. Seriously? She had to regroup from us returning a lousy plate of cold food? We did not eat the peace offering bread and that is the last time I will ever dine there.

11/08/11

Dissapointed

by GingerWalle at Citysearch

I had very similar service. I went this past Sunday with friends to get lunch and they were short staffed. They only had 1 menu to give our table of 5 because there was apparently a large party in the back that had the rest. We then waited 10 minutes to order drinks. The waitress brought 2 of the drinks out but did not bring the 3 waters that had been ordered until 10 minutes after that. We paid for our drinks and left to go eat somewhere else. TERRIBLE service!

07/19/11

Invisible Guest

by abmf at Citysearch

I have never NOT left a tip, until tonight.

Two friends and I went to Fran's after reading some reviews and we were very sorry we did. We were seated quickly and offered menus and drinks but that's about the last time we received any service. From then we became invisible.

The two other tables outside were seated after us but both ordered before us. Finally, Fran, the owner came to ask how everything was. We let her know we had not seen a server or placed our order. She took our order and apparently wrote it in someone's order book because we were asked a few times what we ordered and for clarification.

After waiting about an hour and asking three times for the status of our order (and trying to decide if they even had it anywhere), we were frustrated and ready to leave. We made the mistake of staying.

The two tables seated after us not only got their food before us but they were done and starting dessert by the time we finally got our dinner. The waitress who was serving them did not acknowledge us (the only other table seated outside) and when she refilled their water ignored us. I actually had to go inside to the bar myself for a refill.

While we were eating and the other two tables were finishing dessert, Fran came out and let both of those tables know that dessert was on the house because of the slow service. She told them this loud enough for us to hear. We were shocked at the unprofessionalism of the owner. We had been there longer and received much worse service and at this point, had done very little complaining.

When we received our bill my friend went in to talk to Fran. Her only excuse was that they were busy. She did nothing to compensate us. She just seemed like she didn't care.

We have all been to restaurants before that were busy but the was unacceptable. It's not about the situation, it's about how it's handled and this situation was ignored, just like we were.

I've had two firsts tonight - the first time I paid my bill but didn't leave a tip and the first time I've reviewed a restaurant negatively.

06/11/11

Disappointed

by lweedman at Citysearch

I was tempted to give Fran's 2 stars because the food was sorta good... but the uncomfortable atmosphere, slack service, and undrinkable margarita weighted my opinion more toward the 1 star rating.

When we got there, the front dining room was almost unbearably hot. We were not offered a reason by the hostess or our waiter but I overheard someone telling another guest that the power had been out earlier. Partially forgiveable but it seems like it would have cooled off at some point while we were there.

Our waiter seemed awkward and uncomfortable speaking with us. But we were tempted by a margarita special and ordered two along with our waters. Mistake number one (other than deciding to try this place). The margaritas were truly undrinkable. Our waiter finally returned (oddly enough with a glass of ice to refresh our almost untouched margaritas) and asked how the drinks were. He seemed startled when we told them how bad they were but made the excuse that he was a "crappy" bartender and that they water down their mix with simple syrup, yada yada yada. Instead of offering to have someone else make new drinks for us, he told us they would be "on the house" and then left us without even removing the offending drinks.

Another server brought our meals, which were fine. I had the "great big salad" with salmon added. Good mix of veggies, somewhat small but tasty piece of salmon, and completely un-flavorful dressing. My husband order the veggie nachos (southwest special night) which looked okay but probably should have been offered as an appetizer.

During our meal, we were visited maybe three times by a server offering water... at least one of those times after my husband's water had been empty for a LONG time (considering how hot it still was in the room, maybe it had evaporated). Our waiter seemed afraid of us now and only checked on us once. When he brought the check, he did apologize once again for being a "crappy" bartender though it seemed he was just a bad waiter overall (sorry, he was nice enough but probably should consider a job for which he is more well suited).