Fort Collins Restaurant Guide

I feel it fair to mention first that my wife is a chef for a high quality local restaurant and I have 7 years prior experience waiting tables, most of it fine dining, and I wrote a restaurant "review" column for a now defunct local entertainment periodical, so I have high standards of service. However, I also believe it is paramount that you give people the opportunity to excel. Our attitude to the server is "We are in your hands."

Jeju disappointed in almost every way possible.

Entering the restaurant, you are greeted by a Denny's quality "Hostess Will Seat You" sign and a juvenile neon specials board. The sign fails to mention the hostess will seat you when she's finished doing something else. We were finally seated at a booth next to a large window directly overlooking - ? A scenic vista of the Rocky Mountains? No. The busy downtown street with its charming bustle of people passing to and fro? No. We were treated to an intimate and detailed view of - another couple's table on the patio outside!

Anyway, we're seated and after about 10 minutes the server takes our drink order, warm sake, which arrives promptly. Then we order the Sushi for Two. Okay so far, but a little long on the initial contact. The salad and soup arrive without incident. The salad is unremarkable but the Miso soup is terrific. Not great, but not horrible so far.

Then . . .

Okay, here's what happened: my napkin fell off my lap onto the floor where I couldn't reach it. I figured I would just ask the next person who came by for a new one. About 10 minutes later, a busboy came by to collect our long empty salad and soup plates, but was busy talking to another server and quickly wandered off. Now our sake was gone and our water was empty. After at least 15 minutes, I went to the hostess stand to ask for a new napkin and asked them to send a manager over. I got the owner. He is from Japan, and listened impatiently and said, basically, "Sorry, we're shorthanded." Even the server, who was there at the table now, said "Yeah, we kinda got the 'B' crew on tonight." What the . . .? The attitude seemed to be, "You don't like it? Lots of people DO, so whatever."

Well, 10 more minutes later, I ended up with 3 new napkins and we were on the verge of paying for the sake and bailing out, when the food FINALLY arrived. Quite frankly, it was unremarkable. By this time, however, my wife and I were SO hungry (it had already been a bad night for service elsewhere) that we scarfed the sushi down so quickly we barely tasted it. Unfortunately, our server took this as a sign that we were enjoying it. I think I would have eaten a boiled leather shoe at this point. The sashimi was "meh" but the sushi rolls were decent, even my absolute least favorite piece of sushi, the dreaded "state just west of Nevada and just south of Oregon" roll.

Our server had the decency to not charge us for the beer we ordered to finish our meal, but pretty much everything else was glaringly underwhelming. I personally won't pay to eat here again.

Americans are getting too used to poor service. We need to demand more. When I eat in a restaurant, I don't expect the server to give me a pedicure or answer questions about the economic state of Uzbekistan, but I think it isn't too much to ask that I NEVER have to think about anything on the table in front of me. Anticipating our needs isn't all that difficult, but it seems beyond almost every young server these days. The prevailing attitude that waiting tables isn't a "real job" is destroying the quality of service.

And if even one more server calls my wife "guy" again . . .