Last Friday (December 23rd), my wife, daughter and I went into the New York City to spend the day. My wife took my daughter to work with her as she had a half day of work and I explored the city to buy last minute Christmas gifts and see Ripley's Believe It or Not (more about Ripley's to be blogged about soon) and stop off at Midtown Comics. We all enjoyed the day. Anyway we decided to meet up at Carragher's Pub and Restaurant since it was close to my wife's job and her co-workers had some good things to say about it.

(ALL PHOTOS ABOVE PROVIDED VIA GOOGLE)

Initial impressions of the restaurant were very good. As shown in the photos above, the bar is beautiful. They have the same great wood work throughout the entire location. Like I said, my first impression of the restaurant was good. But that was only considering what I saw while walking through the front door. My second impression came right after when I looked to my right the the host. He was sitting behind a small front desk on his cell phone. He might have been texting, I'm not sure. I have my daughter in a stroller and we are just standing there waiting for him to acknowledge us. The I give off a fake cough in an attempt to get his attention and I said, "there are three of us." He then proceeds to put one finger in the air to signify "1 minute." This made my blood boil a little bit. But I did not react as I knew I would be writing this blog and I did not want to alter any of the experience that they were offering. Once he put his phone down he asked if I needed a children's menu to which I said yes to, but he couldn't find one. My blood is boiling a little more.

However he did take us to a great booth that was both private due to walls on either side of it, but was in great view of the bar that you see above. I really loved the table. He finally brought over a children's menu 5 minutes later. Our server did not actually greet us for another ten minutes. Now I am not really mad at her for this. Sure, could she have given us a soft greet just to introduce herself to us and let us know she would be right back? Yes. But I feel that she wasn't able to do so as she was incredibly busy at the time. It looked as if she was the only server on the shift. No one was helping her and she was overwhelmed. I put that blame on management.

We were hungry and were looking to take our daughter to Bryant Park for a little while before we headed home. I ordered the Classic Beef Burger with Bacon. I was not expecting anything extravagant, but I was expecting a burger cooked the way that I ordered it. As you can see by the picture above that I received a perfect medium rare...oh wait...THE BURGER IS A PERFECT WELL DONE. I ordered the burger to be medium rare because I enjoy a nice juicy burger. Although it had decent flavor, it was dry as a bone.

Oh and let me get back to service real quick. I noticed my server leave for the day while someone else took over my table. Now don't get me wrong, I've been in this business long enough to not mind a server switch over due to a shift ending. But please, introduce the new server before you leave. Don't just let someone new takeover the table and not let your guest know that they shouldn't be looking for you for anything. It would take a minute of your time to let a guest know that they should be looking to someone new to take care of them.

I will tell you, I never complained. I am not the type to ask for a manager and have them fix an item or take something off of the check. I will still give the restaurant my money even with bad service and quality that was not up to par. I will even still leave at least a 20% gratuity because I know that servers work hard for the minimum wage that they get. What I will not do is come back. I will do everything right to think that you gave good service and show you that I enjoyed my food. I just will not come back. May I try Carragher's out again in the future to see if they had improved? I don't know. Have I given a restaurant a second chance before? Yes. We will just have to wait to see what the future holds.

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