Bavaria Restaurant

Last night my mom and I went to try a German restaurant that we recently heard about in Hooksett. It is about 1 1/2 hours from our home. I saw their website online and they recommended having reservations so I called and made them for 6 pm. The restaurant is behind a strip mall. There are no signs visible from the street so I passed it and had to turn around (and then saw a little sign directing you to the back of the strip mall.)It is a very small restaurant and so that's why I think they recommend reservations. We were seated at 5:45 pm and waited for our server - who didn't come until 6 pm after I saw her being told to come to our table by the German hostess. When she finally came and took our order she wasn't any good and she only got worse as the night went on. There were only 2 waitresses in the restaurant and of course we had to get the bad one. I saw the other waitress take care of the table ahead of us and behind us and she was very good and efficient. She told them the daily specials and kept checking on them. We ordered potato pancakes for an appetizer and also our main meal (I had wiener schnitzel and my mom had goulash.) The waitress brought the main dishes out first and said that the kitchen had made a mistake and made both the appetizer and the main dishes together. My mom told her to bring back the main dishes until we had our appetizer first. The potato pancakes had no real taste to them (I have had better at Perkins.) When we were done with that we then had our main dishes. They were good and hot - I was ready to send it back if they weren't hot because they were made at the same time as the potato pancakes, but they were fine. The German hostess came to our table and asked us how everything was. I told her that the food was good, but the service was bad and explained why. She said she had to check with the waitress. She came back and said the waitress had told her that she had been mistaken and thought when we ordered everything at once we wanted it all at once (even though I said that we wanted the pancakes to start with.) It was clear the waitress was constantly blaming everyone but herself - first the cooks and then us. We had dessert (vanilla ice cream with raspberries) and it was good. It took forever for the waitress to bring the check - I was actually standing by the hostess waiting for her to finish talking to have her get the check for us when the waitress came over with it. We paid and left.

I was not impressed at all with the poor service and the excuses for the bad experience. While the food was good the atmosphere created by the waitress made the night a bust. We have lived in Germany and last visited Munich (the hostess and cook are from Munich) last December so we know how German food is supposed to taste and how German service is supposed to be. The food was good, but the service was even worse than in Germany. Over there the service is good up until you want to get the check and leave because then you have to wait and wait and usually go find the person yourself. The Bavaria Restaurant tried to make itself like a typical German restaurant in Munich - ie you didn't get free refills on drinks, but you also didn't have to pay for ketchup like you do in Germany - with good German food, but the bad waitress and the excuses from her and the hostess along with the pricey menu (which wouldn't have made much of a difference had the service been good) made the overall experience a bad one. I'm not sure if I would go back there again, but if I do it won't be for a very long time.