A bad weekend for getting service in Church Hill

I don’t like to talk a lot of smack on my blog and I especially don’t like talking smack about my ‘hood, but I was let down by 3 Church Hill businesses over the past two days.
Let down #1:

For Dan’s birthday party I wanted to get some balloons, so I called up Church Hill Herbs & Flowers. I made an appointment to pick up the balloons on Saturday afternoon, but when I show up they haven’t even started blowing up my balloons. After much fussing between the employees, my balloons were ready 25 minutes later. When I paid for my simple latex, helium balloons I was offered a generous 15% discount because my balloons were not ready when I showed up. However, after the discount I was still paid over a $1/balloon. WTF?!?! I didn’t realize that like gasoline, the price of balloons has drastically gone up.

Let down #2:

For Dan’s birthday celebration, his brother (Mike) & future sister-in-law (Sarah) came down to visit. Today, the four of us, plus another fun-loving couple, decided to go to Jumpin’ J’s for brunch. We were pretty excited because Sarah has never been to J’s before. Last time she came down we tried to go, but it was when J’s changed their hours and we happened to be there on the one day of the week when they weren’t serving any food. So, today we walked down the street, dreaming of the delicious food waiting for us, but when we walked in the restaurant we were “greeted” by the waitress who told us that she wouldn’t be able to serve us any food today. Her reason was that she was leaving at 2:00 (it was just before 1:30) and that no one was coming in after her. So, slightly confused, hungry and a little upset, we left.

Let down #3:

After leaving J’s we decided to go to the Hill Cafe for their Sunday brunch. Again, we ran into more bad service. Our waitress was sweet, but we sat in the less-than-half-full restaurant for over 20 minutes before we were asked for our food orders. Anyway, I was pretty excited about the blueberry pancakes I ordered. I’ve had them before and remembered enjoying them very much because the blueberries are cooked in with the pancake batter…not just placed on top. You can imagine my disappointment when my blueberry pancakes arrived at our table without any blueberries to be found. I could understand a mistake like this in a number of situations…..like, if the restaurant was packed (it wasn’t); or, if I placed a complicated order (I think it seems simple); or, if there were lots of other similar options on the menu that the waitress/cook might get confused (nope, it was the only pancake option for today).

Sorry for the complaining, but I’m wondering, is it just me running into situations like this on the Hill?

Tags: Church Hill, Friends, Life, Richmond