The hosts at NBC's Sports Grill & Brew were surprised by our timely 7:30 pm reservation arrival. They were unprepared as they scrambled to figure out what to do once they confirmed our name and time. That confusion landed us on the 2nd level. After two flights of climbing to the 2nd level, there was no host to be seen. Several minutes after our climb, a gentleman who'd been sitting in what looked like an empty party room sauntered over while talking on a phone. Looking somewhat confused, but mostly bothered by our arrival, his brief acknowledgment lead us past an uncleared table for 8, to a window booth in a corner overlooking the lights of City Walk, obscured by dusty dark blinds.

1 Server, 2 Servers, 3 Servers, None

The table had crumbs and lint from a cleaning cloth that had probably seen better days. The booth seats also had crumbs, likely from the cleaner swooping them off the table. We did a bit of self-cleaning in the interest of getting on with the evening, as we waited for the server. We hadn't noticed the drippy stain on the window blind yet.

Three servers alternated coming to see us, none bringing a menu, or telling us how we could order, so we used our phones to look up the menu through the Universal Studio's App. Once we figured out how to order, I had to leave our seats to go find the waiter so they could take the order, because at that point we didn't know if, when, and which one might come back.  Despite looking straight at the window blinds while talking to us, none of them acknowledged the wet stain on the window blinds that we hadn't seen yet. 

Barf or Bird Poop

While wiggling out of the booth seat, I noticed the large, fresh, goopy stain on the window blind closest to where one of the kids was sitting and thought I'd ask for someone to wipe it. A server eventually came and tried cleaning it with a cloth, only managing to spread it further and making it a larger stain on the widow blinds. Then he decided he would (at my request) raise the blinds. At first it seemed to be working, until the window blinds came crashing down across our booth and two others. After waiting several minutes, a second, more successful effort was made to raise them. With the blinds up, the window now exposed the remainder of whatever the stain was (either bird poop or vomit running down it) and the server now proceeded to clean the window and area. I imagined it would have been easier to move us to a different table, if there was a clean one available, but the table next to us for 8, still hadn't been cleared and we were now there for about 40 minutes.

With time on our hands as we were waiting for our food to arrive, I also noticed that our condiments tray had a pepper shaker but no salt. It also had a bottle of mayo, as did all the tables, that had likely been out all day and the non-refrigerated life of open mayo is usually about 8hours. These bottles didn't look new or fresh. 

The Food Arrives

The food came about 30 minutes after the window cleaning event. We had ordered 8 Chicken Wings, Pasta Pesto with Chicken, and two Burger meals with Fries. The wings were tasty good and cooked well, served with fresh carrots, celery, and dip. The pasta and chicken, while tasty, were heavily peppercorn infused and salted.  The post meal would need water, lots of water! The pasta was also a tad overcooked. The burgers were really crispy on the outside  and somewhat burnt to the taste. The rationed fries were just ok. I didn't realize that when one of the servers asked how I wanted my burger and I said cooked, that they would make it crispy. Apparently, in the USA you can get your burgers pink on the inside, whereas in Canada, you cannot. So, cooking the burger through means that they burn it, err, make it "crispy".

Too Much Was Not Right

The servers came often to ask how things were, but there really was no sense in trying to make this situation better. We didn't want to wait for replacement food and this restaurant experience aside we were having such a great time, I didn't want to invest any time in arguing the poor customer experience. Besides, the servers seemed to be trying (hence they at least got 1 star for service), they just couldn't deliver. As we left, almost 3 hours after we'd arrived, the table for 8 next to us, still hadn't been cleared. If you want a long wait, confused service, having your space cleaned as you eat due to general disregard for cleanliness, and to drop over $120 US on a less than 3 star food quality meal, then this is the place to go.