Gemmell's Restaurant34471 Golden Lantern St
Dana Point, CA 92629
(949) 234-0063
http://www.gemmellsrestaurant.comI couldn't believe I forgot to bring my camera for Dr. P's birthday dinner! The pictures came from my phone so the quality was not that good. But the bad quality pictures still were much much higher quality than Gemmell's Restaurant. This gotta be the WORST restaurant we've been to in South Orange County! I felt really bad and angry that I took Dr. P there for his birthday dinner. Well, we tried our best to enjoy our time together at the restaurant. But I want to tell everyone, STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE! Just to make it clear, the food at the restaurant was actually decent. But the service, oh the rude rude rude serivce, totally ruined this place.
I bought a daily deal voucher from Travelzoo for Gemmell's Restaurant. For $65, we would get 4-course dinner for 2 which values at $135.45. The meal includes a shared appetizer, 2 salads or soup, 2 entrees, 2 desserts, 2 cups of coffee or tea and 2 glasses of wine. Sounds good, right? We made reservation at 6:00pm. When we arrived at the restaurant, there was nobody at the hostess counter. There were a few customers in the restaurant, but no waiter was seen, no hostess was seen, just nobody. We stood around and waited for at least 5 minutes until a lady finally came out from the back room. We told her we had reservation. When I made the reservation on OpenTable, I noted it was my husband's birthday. Normally when I tell restaurants about birthday, they would give you a dessert with candle on it, or at least say something like "happy birthday". But this lady, she read what I wrote out loud. Then she turned to Dr. P and said, "don't worry, we know it's your birthday, ok?" What did that mean? Then she asked us where would we like to sit. We said we would sit at the outside patio. She seated us at a crooked table with one shorter leg that moved around. After that, we waited for another 10 minutes for someone to bring us a menu.
The handsome birthday forced a smile in the picture. This was supposed to be a nice French restaurant. But looked at that menu! The menu was dirty, had water stained, and wrinkled? After we were given the menu, we waited for another 15 minutes for somebody to pay any attention to us. After we placed our order, we told the waiter that our table is crooked and if he could fix it by placing a napkin under the shorter leg to fix the problem. He just said, "no it's the floor" then walked away. We wanted to ask him again when he comes back, but that could be another 30 minutes. So Dr. P actually got down on the floor in his suit and placed his own napkin under the table leg himself. Yup, that sure fixed the problem, which our rude waiter wasn't willing to help.
