Gregorys - Bethlehem

I’ve been to Gregory’s before, and I know to expect large portions of good food at a reasonable price. My most recent visit, however, was somewhat soured by an absentee waitress. I ordered the ribeye steak, my wife the salmon, and my mother the haddock. All three of the meals were prepared well, and the food was great. We all saved room for dessert and got the apple pie a la mode. The pie is baked on the premises and has an awesome homemade taste. On the downside, our waitress Patty, didn’t provide very good service. She never once checked on us after we got our food. We were given boxes for our leftovers by another server. Patty finally appeared to take our dessert order, and I paid the check as soon as she arrived with the pie and coffee. Another group at the table next to us complained about the same poor service. The other waitresses on the floor were very attentive to their tables, and that’s the service I’ve come to expect from Gregory’s. It just stinks that my family got stuck with somebody having a bad night.

The food was mediocre, but incredibly over-priced, and the service was acceptable, although the atmosphere was absolutely TERRIBLE (it was the loudest restaurant I’ve ever been to). The biggest problem, however, didn’t come until it was time to pay. We had a gift certificate that would cover most of the cost of the meal, which we presented to the waitress. When she returned she said the gift certificate was invalid because it had already been redeemed the past weekend. This was impossible since none of my family members had been there since February, so we asked to speak with the manager. The manager apparently called the owner because he asked my father to come back to the office since the owner wanted to speak with him. When my father returned he was literally in a state of panic. Since the gift certificate should’ve been almost enough to cover the expense of the meal, we hasn’t brought a lot of money with us and, therefore, weren’t prepared to pay the full cost of the meal. The owner had threatened to call the police if we didn’t pay, so we had no choice but to sit there and wait. We continued trying to reason with the manager. The waitress even knew my mother and knew we hadn’t been there the previous weekend, but that didn’t seem to matter. Soon enough, the owner arrived a commenced with berating us in front of the entire restaurant (which was incredibly embarrassing). He accused us of making fraudulent copies of gift certificates and trying to pass them off as legitimate. Considering my father brings Gregory’s a lot of business every February, we figured an owner of a restaurant would try and placate a situation like this in order to keep that business—but no, the owner of Gregory’s seemed to be doing everything he could to ostracize my father. The owner of the restaurant just kept trying to tell my father that he didn’t understand how a business worked (even though my father has been a highly respected business owner for 40 years). After being screamed at for over an hour by the owner, I went out for air. So I’m not quite sure how the issue was resolved (I do know my father even offered to wash dishes to pay off our bill). I do, however, know that there is nothing that would lure me into Gregory’s ever again. Most successful business owners know that you sometimes need to extend a courtesy to loyal customers when they’ve had a bad experience even when it’s no fault of your own, but not the owner of Gregory’s. So if you want good food, reasonable prices, and not to be treated like a criminal, stay FAR away from Gregory’s Steakhouse in Allentown, PA.