TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Sale Et Pepe StMaarten Terrible Restaurant & Service

Sale et Pepe is not a nice place to dine at, while the atmosphere is beautiful the service SUCKS!👎

Terrible service from time we’ve entered, we have had a rude hostess by the name of Nikita I believe?

She asked us if we’ve had reservations and we simply said no we did not make any..as much as she insisted to she put us to sit and wait,

We’ve waited over 30 minutes and people came in after us got a seat with NO RESERVATIONS!

Secondly we finally got seated and low and behold we had like 3-4 waitress come to us which was annoying!..we did not even know who was our waitress..all of them were UNPROFESSIONAL and running around like a chicken with no HEAD, which is not good for a restaurant.

We even saw them standing at corners chatting spanish and laughing while we’ve waiting soooooo long to take our order and get our drinks.

Scarlet I guess the manager came to us and asked how everything was and we told her if we can speak to the chef David who is I guess the owner?..she then said ok and neverrrr told him because he never came, a next UNPROFESSIONAL experience.

I am a restaurant owner in New York and I know how the management of food and beverage works, I would not recommend this place to ANYONE that wants Italian food, because the service sucks and the staff needs serious serious training, also the manager, & hostess.

Terrible terrible TERRIIIIIIBLE!

And very expensive for the terrible service you get! Period!

I went there once, a while ago, at their previous location and I wasn't bowled over. Haven't been back. It does seem like this place has a continuing issue with service.

Carol_Hill I guess NOTHING has changed indeed!

My WORST experience on the island thus far.

The 2 times we tried it was a bust too.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience and will speak to the Chef Owner on this.

The few times we have been there, the service is not great but the food was worth it.
But we always go for lunch...not dinner.

We were there Thursday night. Same experience as others - the service is not great. Three of us received our food, but it was 8 minutes before the fourth person received their food. No apology from the waitress for the delay. On a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being great, we all gave the food only a 6.

On that note, we just cancelled our reservation. Life's too short for bad attitude, service and food.

What changed...not that long ago this was THE go to suggestion for a nice meal

Edit: never mind...I did some searching of previous posts and they spew a similar vibe

Good decision.

It is not my favorite place but don't recall any issues with service and the food was good, not great but better than Isola in my opinion which seems to be on a favored list right now. Probably have gone 6 to 8 times to Sale. Kind of goes to how things can change in just a few months time. I do enjoy the setting there on the water with the yachts.
T

Same experience with the service, I know in the states a restaurant with good food will not survive with that kind of service.
Maybe visitors will visit once and be done and this forum has probably turned away potential customers.
I guess they can rely on those native to the island who may be more tolerant to poor service

Makes me want to leave my business and train the staff, it's not that hard, train them or clean house and work somewhere else

Is Sale and Pepe the same Davide as LaGondola days?

NO! Davide from La Gondola has Izi.

Ah ok! Well I totally messed that up. For some reason I thought there was a connection to Sale & Pepe or maybe Izzi?

Not at all. Davide Foini owned LA Gondola and employed a waiter named Davide (Carroccio, I believe?) and the chef was Marco Ferrante. Izi was started by Davide Foini with Marco in the kitchen but Marco has since moved on to Isola and Davide Foini runs Izi.

The Davide that runs Sale & Pepe is not in the La Gondola/Izi mix.

I edited my initial response as there are multiple "Davide"'s involved.

The Head Chef at Isola is Matteo Bottini and has been for for a number of years.

But the restaurant is managed by Marco Ferrante who was the chef at La Gondola. Correct?

Yes. Marco runs Isola and also does some of the cooking. Great personal friend and runs a tight ship.

Correct, unlike Davide that runs Sale & Pepe.

There used to be a chef at one time at La Gondola that was also a Matteo, but different from the one at Isola.

What I find interesting is that for your first post you came to disparage a business.

And shame on you regular naysayers for jumping on the bandwagon.

I suppose restaurants in NYC don’t ask people to have reservations? Or perhaps seat a regular and recognized customer, who most certainly would not need a reservation given their loyalty?

I would never demand that a chef leave the kitchen during dinner service. THAT sounds like rude and entitled behavior. Once things ease up Davide makes his rounds in the dining room.

We have never experienced anything but great Sicilian food. Kim, I hope you will go.

Thanks Dear for your brunt reponse . Some people think that they are Angels and want people to beg them for help. Thanks Dear because we don't have to beg no body for business , for example Kenya and Lance so . Check their pictures and reality speaks for itself . God is Love . Thanks once again.

Leona, I'm glad you spoke up; I've been biting my tongue. This person joins the forum for the sole purpose of bashing a restaurant.

We've been there several times; love the location on the lagoon with the yachts docked right there. The food is good, and we've always had reasonable and pleasant service.

Have read bad things about them before and all the drama. We have eaten there two times, both were good experiences and good food. Not a surprise that some chefs / owners can be very demanding or hot headed at times. No excuses for bad service however. Its a gorgeous place to eat, I am sure it was not cheap to build so I can not imagine they won't fix any problems. It does seem that some people here like to over and over hate on a certain business or give bad reviews. Maybe a bone to pick or just friend or family of maybe a compeitor biz? The other Italian restaurant IZZI I think its call is good too. Nice owner.

How many times must someone post before they are allowed to talk about a less than stellar performance, from an organization, where they are spending their money? 10, 100 or 1000 posts?
(it can be a restaurant, a rental car agency, a rental property, etc....)

Maybe she has been a lurker on this board, like so many of us have, before she found her voice and made her first submission. Sometimes, when you perceive that something really bad has happened you want to share.

She didn't make a reservation and that was her fault, but if whenever she showed up, others showed up after her that also didn't have reservations and got seated before her, loyal customer or not, than maybe she has a right to be annoyed by that happening. Seems to me, the supposed regular customer is being entitled, by just showing up without the reservation, with the expectation of getting seated immediately. When I go to some of my regular haunts, if they are slammed than I expect to wait. Sometimes I am comped a drink or an appetizer while I'm waiting, if at the bar, or once I get seated, but I would never expect it from an establishment.

Not once did she use the word "demand" in her post but she did say she asked to speak with Davide. Not an unreasonable request when one is as sorely dissatisfied as she seemed to be. We don't know if she waited only 5 minutes for him to come out or an hour, but the waitress/manager could have come out and simply said he's not available, she still would have left with an attitude but at least she couldn't say the manager wasn't responsive to her request. I can't believe that there are more than a handful, on this forum, who haven't asked to speak to a manager/supervisor/owner, in their lifetime, when they were experiencing a real problem or what they perceived as a real problem.

Her initial post might have been over the top, but so were some of the attacks against her.

Sounds like a bad experience, caused by BOTH parties, but there was no reason for the "nastiness" that was directed her way by some on the board.

And then to attack other members of the board that might have experienced less than stellar visits at Sale & Pepe, not right.

I'm sure this thread will be closed now.

We also have dined twice at Sal e Pepe, and was blown away both times. The food was fantastic, the ambience was totally beautiful, and the staff were great. Neither time did we have a reservation, and both times were seated quickly, and had plenty of attention both by wait staff, and then by the owner himself. he couldn't have been any nicer. It does seem strange to me, that a brand new poster would post such a ''scathing'' review of a restaurant. Guess some people have nothing better to do, than to try to ruin someone else's liveliehood. I am sure we will be back there at S and P this March!!!

Thanks very much for your comments .

First she complains that so many people came to the table to assist. THEN in the next breath that they were in the corner “speaking Spanish”.

Which is it? Too much attention or not enough?

And it smacks of American ignorance that “speaking Spanish” would be note worthy. You are NOT in the United States. The owners wife speaks Spanish. The servers are multi-lingual. Did the OP feel that they must be aware of the conversation? Who cares what they are discussing? More napkins? The days fresh catch? Which sauce goes with which dish?

I stand by what I said.

Ummmm...I think ANY reviews should be posted...positive or negative and readers can decide. If we only posted rah-rah comments then what's the point....EVERYTHING is then great...I ALWAYS take any comments with a grain of salt. The Spaghetti House comments were very helpful as were the Sale and Pepe

Edit: and I mentioned that there were a few similar issues posted previously in this forum

And I stand by what I said!!!! And if she had been from Canada would it have been Canadian ignorance or from France, French ignorance?

We had serious reservations about dining here after all the reports. We did experience sub par service a couple of years ago. For us this trip, we had great food and service. We dined 2 nights this past week.

Well, yes. Yes it would be. It can be simplified to ignorance and entitlement. Fine with that.

How about linguistic racism?

No, not fine with that at all, but I've seen what and who you are and have no need to respond anymore. (Bad Review = ignorance + entitlement + racism)

(It's taken more than 10 years but I've actually seen the race card played on TTOL, amazing)

C’mon, Peeps. We’re better than this. If I could remember my moderator login I’d close this thread right now but since I can’t……….

Can we at least agree that we’ve all had different experiences and let the buyer beware?! And be done with the nastiness!

How about I close it then.