Filling Station - Dayton, Ohio

I didn't want to have a full-on bachelorette party, so I decided to get some of my gals together for dinner. The Filling Station is right down the street from at least half of the gals I invited, and I know they have good food and a great beer list. The last time I went, just after they'd opened, I wasn't at all impressed with the service. I was hoping that a year later, that would have changed and they'd all be a bit less green.

The food and atmosphere: tops. Everyone's food was plentiful and tasty, with a friendly, fun crowd and a good game room - where unfortunately, most things were still broken (as they were on my first visit). On the phone they'd told me since I had a large party, we could use the banquet room at no cost, since no one was in there that night. We got there and the hostess looked sort of put out and started asking waitresses to move tables together to accommodate us. Not sure what she didn't understand when I explained the phone call I'd made just an hour earlier about the banquet room. We had a server who had a trainee tagging along with her, which is normally no big whoop - except the "experienced" one didn't know what any white wines were, despite chardonnay. They then informed us that they were out of basically every white wine, and delivered my sister a glass of Chianti that she didn't order. Luckily, they had Maker's Mark - so at least I was still in business.

They took our the table's order in three different waves, so no one got their food at the same time. When we were ready to retire to the patio, it took almost 30 minutes for everyone to get their checks. Oh, did I mention some of our party walked in on our waitress sobbing hysterically in the ladies' room? Good times. Not awkward at all.

Again, I'll reiterate that the food was very good. I ordered some sweet chili wings and sampled the fries, club sandwich, quesadilla and cheese sticks, and they were all great. But, I doubt I'll be rolling the dice on their service many more times. Maybe restaurant owners could take a page from Figlio's book and start hiring people with excellent customer service backgrounds, instead of assuming that a lot of restaurant experience makes someone a good server.