Update: The Garden Restaurant is now closed.
The Garden Restaurant is the most horrible location for lunch in downtown Saint Petersburg. The company I work for (not associated with this blog) picked up food from them for our regular company lunch. Every single one of my coworkers had a bad meal, and I believe my experience was the worst of them all. We order from many local places, and this was the most appalling ever in terms of food and service.
I ordered a chicken salad wrap, which is listed on their online menu as a lunch option. My other seven coworkers ordered normal items from their online menu as well. When our company went to pick up the food at the scheduled time it was incomplete and not ready. They somehow only remembered half the order we phoned-in the day before, and didn’t even have that ready. After waiting, we received the entire order, but they had messed up most of our meals.
Two of my coworkers ordered a steak sandwich, but they added jalapenos that were not listed in the menu’s detailed description. My coworkers were not pleased with this unexpected hot surprise to their company lunch. Likewise, to my disappointment, they replaced what I thought would be a standard chicken salad wrap with a chicken curry wrap. I enjoy curry and other Asian cuisine, but it was not what I wanted this day. Chicken curry is just not a valid substitute for chicken salad. All of the other meals were mediocre at best.
My company has never ordered from them before, but they claimed we loved their chicken curry previously and they thought we’d love the unannounced substitution. I did not! Additionally their staff refused to transfer our calls to the store manager, and continually made up excuses why we could not complain via phone or in person. We were forced to dispute the charge on our corporate credit card, and we will never visit them again.
I have also learned they have many critical restaurant violations for food safety. You can ready the details here: The Garden Restaurant Violations. Avoid this place at all costs.
Overall: 0.5 / 5
Food: 1.0 / 5
Service: 0.0 / 5
Price: $10+ / person