Tacoma Red Robin: Beginning of the End?

We’ve been going to this particular Red Robin (the Tacoma Mall location) for over 11 years, and I was going there for about 5 years before that. JoAnn and I met there, got engaged there, got married there, and even honeymooned there. (Ok, so was just kidding on the last three parts, though Red Robin was mentioned in our wedding.) It’s always been a kid-friendly, decent place to go, and almost always the service would be good, if not great.

That seems to have changed over the past year or so. Service has slipped, some of the great staff have left or now work in the bar area, and it just hasn’t been up to par. This is a major generalization, but with this many years under our belt, I think I’ve earned this: the wait staff don’t seem to interact with the kids much at all anymore…that’s something the great ones always did. Was even a time last year that I had a bit of an issue with a manager–turned out to be the general manager (and perhaps that’s a hint right there)–and took it up with RR corporate. Up until this year, we’ve gone to celebrate each person’s birthday–it was a little tradition of ours. But we only went on Sammy’s, skipped Mika’s, JoAnn’s, Josh’s, and then went last night for the March 7th celebration.

We ordered, and got our drinks and appetizers. The runner only brought 3 plates and silverware sets, and we asked for the other two. Within a couple short minutes, and literally while we were just getting into the appetizer, our food comes out. And we’re not ready for it, because, well, we just got the appetizer. We sent it back, where it sat and then was brought back to us lukewarm. Oh, and the original runner still hadn’t come back with the other plates and silverware. Note: some of this may sound trivial, but I’ve spared details, plus we are comparing to the many, many, many times of great service in the past.

So we ended up talking with our favorite and most awesome manager Ken. We talked about these events, how it seems service has suffered lately, and even about the issues I’d had before with the general manager. We talked about how we’re not so sure we’ll be coming back much if at all. (And Joann’s going to be polling the groups she’s involved in to find an alternative.)

Initially they were going to take some things off the bill, which was fine but missing the point. We were willing to pay for it. We ate it. We just were not terribly happy. But there was a new manager that Ken introduced us to later-who we’d initially brushed off asking to talk with Ken–who wanted to take it a step further and take virtually everything off (for credit card transactions, something small had to be left on). Again, we were thankful, but were willing to pay for it. And we did leave the tip we would have otherwise left, because we wanted the waitress to understand that it wasn’t her, though she seemed to have taken it that way, and seemed a little unnerved after we asked to speak to Ken…and even after I specifically told her that we understood it wasn’t her.

Anyone else around the area have feedback on this location?

We’ve been going to this particular Red Robin (the Tacoma Mall location) for over 11 years, and I was going there for about 5 years before that. JoAnn and I met there, got engaged there, got married there, and even honeymooned there. (Ok, so was just kidding on the last three parts, though Red Robin…