I made a reservation for Voltaggio Brothers Steak House MGM National Harbor MD for my husband's birthday (1/15/22 7:45pm). I received a text confirming our reservation, but also informing me that there is a 15 minute grace period before pushing back or rescheduling our reservation if all parties in my reservation were not there by the designated grace period time. I would not have been offended by the text if the up coming events did not occur. When we arrived at the front desk, the hostess was on the phone. I didn't expect her to hang up and immediately attend to me, but a "Welcome to Voltaggio brothers, I will be with you in one moment" would have been appreciated. what I received instead was no acknowledgment of our arrival then "you have a reservation, name, you're check in, table will be ready shortly". That is neither professional or welcoming when someone is coming to spend money in your establishment. When we sat down (we were a party of 4), my sister noticed a table that was less than 4 feet from where she was sitting. I said to her, the table wasn't set for service and from the virtual tour that I took of the restaurant and the write up about safety first during this pandemic it appeared they were establishing social distancing between tables as portrayed in the virtual tour and write up and she should not be concerned. It turned out she had valid reason to be concerned because at some point the table was occupied by a party of two, so I guess safety first was no longer a priority. Our waiter Earl started off good, yes ma'am, yes sir, be right back with your drinks, but sometime after he received the tables order we never saw him again. It was like a timeshare sales person that got you to sign and now he moved on to his next unsuspecting victim. Our waiter Earl did not serve us any of our food and the time we waited on our food was absolutely ridiculous. I guess refills on drinks were not an option since our waiter Earl never came back to the table to see if we needed anything like, drinks. In a steakhouse of this caliber you would expect to get steak knives to cut your steak, you would even expect for a medium well steak to be properly cooked ,especially when you use being on Top Chef as a selling point. We were given butter knives to cut steaks and my husband's steak was bright red and bleeding. Both issues could have been easily resolved if our waiter would have done his job and came to our table once in a while to see how we were doing. After waiting again a very long time for some type of service, we requested to speak to a manager. I guess it got back to Earl that we wanted to speak to a manager because it was apparent that he begrudgingly brought the complimentary ice cream popsicles for my husband's birthday and my sister's anniversary. My husband even tried to talk to him about the issues. Instead of Earl taking responsibility for what was clear to be bad service on his part, he just made excuses and caught an attitude. He had the waitress servicing the table next to us to bring out our checks. The assistant manager Ernest, was polite but provided very little resolution or concern for our issues. A restaurant of this caliber, you would think would hirer a management team that would take responsibility for the issues discussed, to find a way to make dissatisfied customers satisfied customer that would want to come back. Would want to assure their customers this is not typical behavior from their wait staff, but apparently it is typical behavior because the customers sitting at the table next to us (the not social distancing table), was able to hear our complaints with the manager and stated that the service is extremely slow and the front house is the worst customer service they ever dealt with, she also stated that they ordered a bottle of wine that they never did receive, and it was unfortunate because the food was very good. We could have be able to make the same claim about the food if our food wasn't cold when we received it or cooked properly. My husband and I enjoy a good steak, and don't mind spending big money to get it. Flemings Steakhouse, Baltimore, is still our number 1 steakhouse because every time we have been there, service impeccable, steaks cooked perfectly. We have absolutely no problem spending top dollar for a meal in their establishment. What offends me is when a steakhouse that sells top dollar steaks and should provide service to match the quality of the steaks they are serving, but I don't receive that, and now I'm stuck with a huge bill for a subpar meal and piss poor service. So this is why the text that was sent to me offends me as well because Voltaggio requested a higher level of customer respect for the establishment's time and efforts, that did not apply to their own wait staff and employees. I can only hope that this review reaches a level of management that truly cares about the reputation of this establishment. It's unfortunate that my husband's birthday dinner was so disappointing, because I could see the potential of a great restaurant if it had better wait staff and management.
