Via Tribunali

Probably good food but we'll never find out.... Finally tried Via Tribunali in Belltown – in spite of the fact that we’re only a block and a half away. We’d tried the Capitol Hill location after it opened; food was good, but attitude was bordering on rude. We’d heard the same from other people over the next couple of years so never bothered to go back. We were seated without delay by a pleasant-enough host. Our server came after about 5 minutes, took our drink order and appetizer order (the olive miste). The drinks came promptly and were very well made so we were expecting a pleasant evening. A slow evening; kitchen staff would occasionally come out to the bar to chat; the servers would stop by talk to them. So after another 10 minutes and no appetizer, and I stopped the server and asked if we had forgotten to order the olives – her response was no, we had ordered it and she had placed the order. She asked if we’d like to order dinner and said we’d wait until the appetizer came and order then (I was beginning to think it was something more elaborate than a bowl of olives since it was taking a while). Another 10 minutes passed and now there were 2 or 3 kitchen staff at the bar – obviously they couldn’t be very busy – we stopped our server and asked about the olives. She said she’d check. Five minutes later we’re at 25 minutes post drink delivery, our cocktails are just about finished, no olives, and at this point we’re somewhat perturbed – and assuming that what must be coming out of the kitchen on such a slow night must be some elaborate creation that could take at least 10 or 15 minutes to put together. At that point the server arrived with a bowl of olives. I asked her how it could possibly take almost half an hour to get a bowl of olives. Her attitude was somewhere between ‘absolutely don’t care/slightly amused’ and her comment was ‘Well, I reminded her a few minutes ago’. We gave her our dinner order, but immediately after she left we looked at each other and realized we would not have a pleasant evening if we remained. So we got up, told the host to return the untouched appetizer, and to have our server cancel our order and give us a check for the drinks. We also told the host what had happened. At that point the server became apologetic and offered to buy our appetizer or dinner, and when we turned that down, attempted to comp our drinks. We refused that as well and paid for our drinks. We didn’t leave a tip (we generally tip in the 25% range; not so great service gets around 15 and poor at 10). A server has to be quite accomplished to rate a 0% tip, and on the very, very rare occasions it does occur (maybe once every 2 or 3 years?) we always write the complaint on the charge slip so that the manager/owner will be sure to see it. (If I owned a business I would certainly appreciate that level of feedback). We dropped the car off at home and on our way out of the lobby to get some dinner, told the evening shift concierge what had happened. Apparently he’d heard similar stories about both locations. And we had a very pleasant dinner just a couple of blocks away. We eat out several times a week, and still can’t cover all of the wonderful restaurants in Seattle (although we do have a handful of favorites that we like to get to at least monthly). We expect both good service and very good food – 90% of the time, we actually get that, and much more. Seattle’s a food-lover’s town. Very occasionally, either the service or food will be exceptional and compensate for lack of the other; Via Tribunali is certainly not in that latter case. Good food but incredibly rude and negligent service – why bother when there’s so much to choose from.…