Club Cafe

My friend and I went to club cafe for the first time during restaurant week. The food was very good. I had a delicious salmon with a sweet chili sauce. The strip loin was tender and tasty. But...the service was horrible, or I should say the lack of service. The waitress never refilled our drinks/water, never returned to ask how the entrees were, never cleared the dirty dishes, brought the dessert (which was standard that night) before we had finished our entrees. I asked for a few minutes to decide about coffee. Twenty minutes later I flagged the bus boy down and asked for the check. I left a 10% tip. I can't remember when I left such a bad tip. She was lucky I was paying. My date wanted to leave her nothing. It's too bad. The bad service really spoiled a good meal/evening. I won't rush back nor will I recommend it to my friends.

The DJ is killer!! The music is always superb. The drinks are lovely and strong and a great value. I have sampled the dinners, appetizers and desserts - um - sometimes its good and sometimes it could be better. Brunch buffet is nice - I wouldnt drive into town for it but its pretty good - go early! They weirdly don't have enough waitstaff when you're in the dining area. Don't be in a rush. Bartenders are quick and good! I would absolutely drive in town for the drinks and music - great place to be seen! New Years was really fun as well!

This is the e-mail we sent to Club Cafe following our experience on Valentin'es Day of 2005: Once again, we are disappointed with Club Cafe in Boston. My husband had attempted to make online reservations for our first Valentine's dinner as a married couple on Sunday. Your online reservations website was down, so my husband called directly. He was told to make the reservations online, apparently too busy to take our reservations personally, but did so eventually. Our reservations were for 9PM, and enjoyed a drink in the bar. When seated, we informed that 2 of your 6 entrees were already sold out for the evening. I also overheard that a dessert was also sold out before 9:30PM, when you were seating people up to 11PM that night. After a brief discussion between my husband and me, we decided that we should not have to settle for a meal we really didn't want to eat from what you had left to offer, so we left, after politely informing the waiter. This is not the first time this has happened to us at Club Cafe. Our bowling league had their banquet there last spring, Beantown Bowlers. Most of the buffet food was gone even before all tables were invited to the buffet line. And it was clear that no additional food was to be prepared for this event at the time. Why we should drive into Boston, pay to park our car, and be treated like this? This was the response we initially received from management: This is "*** ********" I am one of the managers at Club Cafe 209. First let me just apologize for your experience last evening. We ordered based on the reservations that Open table provided us and although we had 80 lobsters and 100 pounds of the filet we did in deed sell out of both way to early. Although I had hoped the lobster would be a hit I had no idea it would be such a hit! In any event I am very sorry this happened to you and your partner and I would very much like the opportunity to make it up to you both. I am hearing that this is not the first time you have had a negative experience with us and I know that we have been through many changes in 21 years of business and I can only really with clarity talk about where we are at currently. We recently hired a new Chef, from Austin Texas, and he is working very hard to put out good quality food in a consistent manner. As with every transition, there are mistakes and miscalculations I would like to invite you back to dine with us again in the near future and will, if you will give us the opportunity, send you out a gift certificate. In fact if you let me know when you will be back I will work to have the same baked lobster dish available. Again I am very sorry for the experience and await you response. We will need your mailing address to send the certificate. Following this, we received this from the owner: Mr. "********" was in error in offering you a coupon and lobster dinner on us. I do not appreciate your insinuations in your e-mail We hesitated in taking your reservation by hand because there were virtually no open tables, and we did not want to overbook. The so called left overs were excellent entree choices and worth at least $20 more than we priced the meals at. IF YOU DID ANY RESEARCH AT ALL, YOU KNOW THAT THE NEXT LOWEST PRICED FIXED PRICE MENU IN BOSTON WAS $75.00 It appears you would be happier dining in some place other than 209. After talking to many of our friends, they have also had similar experinces at Club Cafe.

All the pretentious attitude and bad music one could ever want (or avoid).