Reviews for Julian's Steakhouse

10/13/2008 - MenuPix User
The other night my sister and brother in law were visiting from out of town. I wanted to take them to a nice dinner, so chose Julian's. We didn't know that the restaurant had been turned into a banquet facility and that there was an event being held that evening. The hostess asked us to sit in the lounge section, we thought it would be no problem. Same menu, she said. There were no tablecloths on any of the tables in the lounge, and the floor is still torn up, but OK, we understand there's construction going on. Our bartender-turned-waitress was less than attentive. She "set" the table with placemats that I swear were cut out with kiddie scissors from old tablecloths--they were not hemmed on any sides and were so rumpled that they did not lie flatly on the table. There were no napkins, so I went back the hostess and requested napkins. "Cloth napkins?" was the reply. Yes, I was given 4 cloth napkins. When the steaks came, we requested steak sauce. The bartender/waitress gave us an empty bottle and we asked again, and were given another bottle that did have steak sauce in it, but the cap was 1/2 broken and the neck/mouth of the bottle looked questionable. We had to ask for steak knives and were given what the men in our party called, "Butter knives on steroids." We asked if there were any "real" steak knives, and she was gone about 15 minutes and came back with 2 serrated steak knives that were so bent up, the one CLEARLY had been used as a screwdriver at some point, because the tip was bent over and flattened. I had requested oil and vinegar for my salad, but I didn't have the cruet set for more than 2 minutes when one of the waitresses whispered to the bartender that she needed it back for the buffet side. I asked the bartender if there was only one set, and she said yes. I told her that it was ridiculous, and she just shrugged her shoulders.
Overall, the food was very good, the prime rib was "excellent", however the service was substandard and the environment/ambiance of the meal was really very poor. I was embarrased to have brought my family there. The tab was over $125 and we did not get our money's worth. To make matters worse, I started bringing my work unit (12 people) to dinner there in the spring, and we planned on doing our New Year's celebration there as well. After this experience, there's no way I could bring my work colleagues there, without some sort of guarantee that we would be treated as first class guests, not some rejects from the banquet hall, getting second hand treatment and leftover steak knives and broken bottles while all of the banquet guests are using the "good" tablecloths and placemats.