45 East

Reviews about 45 East

• 2 / 5

  By Brad Bernhardt
  As loyal patrons of 45 East throughout college, my wife (Miami grad as well) and I were so excited to visit our favorite restaurant during a summer visit to Oxford. We had enjoyed going to eat and hanging out here throughout our time in school.
  
  My wife was looking forward to returning and having a long time fixture on the menu, the 45 East House Pasta.
  
  We arrived during a typical June weekend, Oxford was empty and there was no crowd at all. In fact, there were as many tables as 45 East employees at the time. We sat at a high top in the bar area and waited for our server to approach. We were greeted by a very unenthusiastic young woman. We ordered our drinks, a Coke and a cocktail... Literally 20 minutes later out served dropped off the drinks saying, "Do you what you want?" My wife noticed the house pasta was missing and said, "We graduated from here a few years ago and I always loved the house pasta, but I noticed it's no longer on the menu." Her response verbatim was, "Oh, that sucks..." We looked at each other in shock at her choice of words and proceeded to order from what was on the menu.
  
  Our sever, who never provided her name, seemed like she was rather new. Since my wife and I both had have serving jobs in the past, we were understanding and chalked up the bad service thus far as a lack of experience.
  
  When our food arrived she literally threw the plates down in front of us and ran away without asking if we needed anything else. My wife's Coke had been empty for a while and she waited a bit longer for her to come check on us after we stated our meals. When she failed to come, my wife walked up to the bar and asked the bartender for a refill. Our server appeared from behind the bar and filled her cup without saying a word. My wife walked back to the table, sat down, and continued eating. We were not even halfway through our meal when our server came by and placed the bill on the table and walked away without saying a word.
  
  After we finished, I opened the bill and noticed that we had been charged for two Cokes... When our nameless server came to collect the check, I politely asked, "Is there a reason why we were charged for two Cokes? I thought there were free refills?" She had a look of hatred and snapped on us shouting, "WHATEVER! I'm just doing my job and this is not my problem! I'll go take both of them off the bill!" and stomped away. We are flabbergasted. We had not been rude or given her attitude in any way. Furthermore, we had terrible service and my wife had to get up from the table for the aforementioned refill!
  
  Once again, my wife and I both had been severs and understand the stress of the job. However, we were her only table at the time and she was giving us attitude for no reason.
  
  For the first time in our lives, we asked for a manger to complain. He was very understanding and confirmed that fountain drinks had free refills. This was a sports bar after all. He offered to cover our entire bill. We politely declined as we were not complaining for a free meal, but simply to make a point. We also still left a 10% tip to prove that it was not about the extra $2.50 that she had added to our bill, but rather the terrible service and attitude. This place gets an additional star for the actions of the manager for trying to fix the situation, but we are very disappointed that they would hire someone of such low caliber to represent their establishment.
  
  We still talk about this debacle as the worst dining experience we have ever had. It's a shame because we had such fond memories of 45 East as Miami students.
  
  
  November 08, 2016