The Belmont

With many of the establishments in the area, I really feel it comes down to you get what you pay for in terms of employees.  The establishment will be employ high school age children, who are presumably the cheapest labor in the area, and then people are shocked when the employee seems disinterested. 

I believe I also saw a recent thread where someone laments the lack of quality candidates  in the labor pool.  I'd be willing to bet that this is the same root cause - low wages limit the caliber of the applicant pool.

The reality is that the economics of offering a livable wage to employees not tenable (or desirable) for either the employers or the customers.

I went in a few months ago after a long time away, and it still had that smell.  Mildew of some sort.  It's a huge no for me.   There has to be something that can be done.

mdellavo said:

With many of the establishments in the area, I really feel it comes down to you get what you pay for in terms of employees.  The establishment will be employ high school age children, who are presumably the cheapest labor in the area, and then people are shocked when the employee seems disinterested. 

I believe I also saw a recent thread where someone laments the lack of quality candidates  in the labor pool.  I'd be willing to bet that this is the same root cause - low wages limit the caliber of the applicant pool.

The reality is that the economics of offering a livable wage to employees not tenable (or desirable) for either the employers or the customers.

So the Trat, the Pub, Arturo's, Village Ice Cream, Words don't employ high school students?  Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought they did. 

One note in defense of the service here: it may have been very relaxed, but the servers were definitely nice and plenty attentive in my opinion.

They were really sweet to our kids.

Sorry to see anyone fail, but that's the sad reality of these things: 50+% of businesses fail. My sense is that's probably higher with restaurants ... And that's the third flop in that spot ... Again, sorry to see anyone fail. 

In such a small space, they need to do a lot of take-out and delivery or have a product that will draw customers all day.  

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Not sure I would agree it's terrible, but it certainly seems challenging ... and the place wasn't getting a lot of love from online reviews, which couldn't have helped. Hope they can rebound somehow.

boomie said:

I went in a few months ago after a long time away, and it still had that smell.  Mildew of some sort.  It's a huge no for me.   There has to be something that can be done.

That space has a stink to it that has carried over through several businesses (although I don't remember it from the shoe store days). That needs to be dealt with.  I won't eat in a restaurant that stinks of mold or bleach. 

orzabelle said:

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Or Village Coffee...........14 years of serving Maplewood

author said:

orzabelle said:

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Or Village Coffee...........14 years of serving Maplewood

Longer than that. It was open in May of '99 when we moved here.

Think Belmont was very clean.  Had just been rehabbed. 

jimmurphy said:

author said:

orzabelle said:

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Or Village Coffee...........14 years of serving Maplewood

Longer than that. It was open in May of '99 when we moved here.

Signed contracts on our house in 1994 and lunch there afterward ... 

Soul_29 said:

jimmurphy said:

author said:

orzabelle said:

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Or Village Coffee...........14 years of serving Maplewood

Longer than that. It was open in May of '99 when we moved here.

Signed contracts on our house in 1994 and lunch there afterward ... 

Different owners then according to current owner

The issue in "The Belmont" was in my description of a visit there a few pages back. Around that time, I was at another store in downtown Maplewood trying to talk up the place and I said, "The owner obviously loves food."

"Too bad he doesn't like people," was the response of another customer and local. Ouch.

This is a very low bar to exceed for the next business that enters the space.

I'll comment on the other thread, but I ate at "South Mountain Tavern," and it suffers all of the same problems that "Ricalton's" did. It was only the first week. 

I do not think the problem is with poor applicants for service jobs. Most restaurants in seasonal areas have high school and college, not career, waitstaffs and train them to do service work (I was one once upon a time.) The problem at "The Belmont" and at "Ricalton's" was no manager training the service staff.  I'll give "The South Mountain Tavern" some time. (I heard someone speaking to the staff while I was using the restroom and it sounded like, "All right from now on I want you to. . .")

Note to everyone: good food isn't enough. 

I think another Ricalton problem was...really mediocre food at great food prices.

I don't know what the answer is. Some folks do have to up their game. But sometimes I think we're too hard on some of these places. 

On FB, people are fantasizing about some kind of SOMa beer garden. Cool, but we don't have a beer garden. Why not just try and enjoy the places that actually exist?

apple44 said:

I don't know what the answer is. Some folks do have to up their game. But sometimes I think we're too hard on some of these places. 

On FB, people are fantasizing about some kind of SOMa beer garden. Cool, but we don't have a beer garden. Why not just try and enjoy the places that actually exist?

It was my impression that the establishment which is intended to take over the South Orange Village Hall space is supposed to include a beer garden.

My observation is that when a new place opens with a liquor license the place will be disproportionately expensive, since liquor licenses cost such a ridiculous amount to acquire.  So any beer garden in SOMA is likely to end up with $12 soft pretzels and $24 bratwurst plates, along with $9 beers.

I'm sorry to hear about the Belmost closing.  It's a shame when any business fails to thrive.  As a couple of people have pointed out there are a number of places which have succeeded despite the high rents in town.

author said:

Soul_29 said:

jimmurphy said:

author said:

orzabelle said:

Not for Arturo's or Able Baker or the Pub

mdellavo said:

The Village is a terrible location for a business, charm aside.

Or Village Coffee...........14 years of serving Maplewood

Longer than that. It was open in May of '99 when we moved here.

Signed contracts on our house in 1994 and lunch there afterward ... 

Different owners then according to current owner

Makes sense. It has been good in both "regimes".

Arturo's has succeeded,  quite wildly, because they turned the restaurant business on its head.

Their principle is that the restaurant business isn't rocket science - you can teach cooking, recipes, And customer service.

They don't give a crap about previous experience - they hire based on having a great attitude and willingness to learn.

And obviously the owners really care about their customers!

IMO at least 1/2 the restaurants in Maplewood and South Orange won't make it - 1/4  of them - their owners or managers have the customer service skills of a shovel, and then their staffs do too, the other 1/4 have completely unrealistic expectations, e.g., the math shows they simply won't succeed based on the average price per person.  Then there are some with truly inconsistent or average food. 

I recently left a poor review on Yelp for a Maplewood restaurant.  The food was lousy, the service terrible (it was my first time there).  On Yelp the owner responded - you don't like the concept.  Seriously?!? how about apologizing, taking to heart the very legitimate criticisms instead of being defensive.  (A tip off should have been thAt there was only one other occupied table )

peteglider said:

I recently left a poor review on Yelp for a Maplewood restaurant.  The food was lousy, the service terrible (it was my first time there).  On Yelp the owner responded - you don't like the concept.  Seriously?!? how about apologizing, taking to heart the very legitimate criticisms instead of being defensive.  (A tip off should have been thAt there was only one other occupied table )

Curiosity got the better of me.

After a greeting and a thanks for your review, this was the owner's first sentence: "Sorry to hear you didn't like our concept/food." The first word sounds to me like an apology, and the last like an acknowledgment that your complaints weren't just about the fusion you thought was missing.

Since you weren't exactly petewells in detailing what the restaurant could do better, I don't know what more the owner could have said.

peteglider said:

I recently left a poor review on Yelp for a Maplewood restaurant.  The food was lousy, the service terrible (it was my first time there).  On Yelp the owner responded - you don't like the concept.  Seriously?!? how about apologizing, taking to heart the very legitimate criticisms instead of being defensive.  (A tip off should have been thAt there was only one other occupied table )

Amen.  Too many local proprietors have a similar, smug attitude.  When I waited tables at a successful DC-based restaurant group during college, the over-arching motto was essentially, "do whatever you have to so that customer will return."  So if they coomplained about an entree, offer to replace it with something else and neither item goes on the check.  If they waited too long (more than 2 minutes) to be first approached by a waiter, offer them a free first round of drinks, etc. etc.  Often times at the end of a busy night, if my manager noticed that I had no "house" checks or items (things given to customers for free) - I'd be questioned about it - "Everything went perfectly tonight?  The kitchen was never slow with food?  No one had a birthday or special occasion?"  

But then again, before I was allowed on the floor to first shadow an existing waiter, I had to do 5 days of training at the corporate offices, learning the points of service, ingredients of the regular menu items, characteristics of all the varietals of wine, etc...  They did service correctly and were successful because of it.

OK, trolls, have at criticizing my post...

lanky said:

Amen.  Too many local proprietors have a similar, smug attitude.

Did someone order trolls? At your service ...

I may be making a leap in assuming I read the right review, but I detected nothing smug in the proprietor's response.

This is the Yelp review mentioned above:

"I am truly a proponent of locally owned restaurants, and have heard good things.  Was there with my business partner - and honestly had some of the worst, most uninspired, tasteless Mexican food I've ever had. Where was the "fusion"?  Most inferior Mexican food I've had, and by far worst food in all of Maplewood Village.  Utter waste of our time to have eaten here."

- Who takes the time to dump such vitriol on a place like that?*  If you had a bad experience, don't go back.  I don't understand the people who post on Yelp, nor frankly the people who rely on Yelp. 

* The reviewer has 5 reviews of which 4 are 1 star!

Agreed DaveSchmidt.  What more was expected of the owner after the reviewer took a permanent steamer on her establishment online.  She apologized and offered a brief explanation.

if that review was A.C., then someone has to get their tastebuds checked 

The establishment in question is Abril Cocina, and boy do I disagree with the below opinion. Totally bizarre take on this place! Here's a much more informed and accurate assessment (from the New York Times, which gave it the top rating of "excellent"):

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/1...

DannyArcher said:

This is the Yelp review mentioned above:

"I am truly a proponent of locally owned restaurants, and have heard good things.  Was there with my business partner - and honestly had some of the worst, most uninspired, tasteless Mexican food I've ever had. Where was the "fusion"?  Most inferior Mexican food I've had, and by far worst food in all of Maplewood Village.  Utter waste of our time to have eaten here."

- Who takes the time to dump such vitriol on a place like that?*  If you had a bad experience, don't go back.  I don't understand the people who post on Yelp, nor frankly the people who rely on Yelp. 


* The reviewer has 5 reviews of which 4 are 1 star!

That is a seriously wrongheaded review of that restaurant. This is the so far beyond the pale type of review I dismiss out of hand. My strategy with Yelp is to ignore the gushing and the absurdly negative reviews and look at those that actually have something to say.

I was taking the Yelper at (peteglider) at his or her word "On Yelp the owner responded - you don't like the concept.  Seriously?!? how about apologizing" - alternate facts, I guess!

But I've been to other village places where the live response of waiters/managers/owners to customers' voicing concerns / having a problem inside their establishment have been less than accommodating and sometimes accusatory or even belligerent.  

DaveSchmidt said:

lanky said:

Amen.  Too many local proprietors have a similar, smug attitude.

Did someone order trolls? At your service ...

I may be making a leap in assuming I read the right review, but I detected nothing smug in the proprietor's response.