Dining at Julio’s on Eastlake

My wife, my son and I went out to dinner at Julio’s on Eastlake. Here’s what happened. Upon entering, there were four persons at the front hostess station, smiling and talking among themselves. The hostess quickly seated us in a booth. It was around 4:00 pm and the restaurant was not busy. We sat there for several minutes. No one acknowledged our presence. I tried to get the attention of the servers and bus persons as they made their way through the restaurant, but it seems like they purposely did not want to make eye contact with customers. I could detect the “I’m doing what I am paid to do and nothing more” attitude. What a difference as compared to the other Julio’s locations! I did not notice a manager or floor supervisor anywhere. We continued to wait. It was almost ridiculous that nobody came to our table. Not even a “Someone will be right with you”. There was one person just standing near the closed buffet line with a damp towel in his hand. I have no idea what he was doing, and I don’t think he knew either. There were still three of four persons at the hostess station talking among themselves and laughing. Was one of them our server? Finally, a server walked close to our table, but I could see that he was purposely looking in the other direction, as if he was deliberately ignoring us. I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not making this up. I was truly perplexed. Anyway, I reached out and gently tapped on his forearm and asked “Do you know who our server is? He said, no, he didn’t know who our server is, but then he asked us for our drink order. He suddenly became our server! What a coincidence! The rest of our dining experience was fine, and the food was delicious. But what happened during the first 10 minutes? Do the staff at this location think that it’s acceptable to ignore customers? What were the four persons at the hostess station doing other than talking and laughing among themselves? Should there be a floor manager reviewing how things are going and making adjustments as necessary? I must say that all of the staff appeared to be in their early 20s. Is that a contributing factor to consider here? Is this just the way it is with a Gen Z workforce? Someone in charge needs to refocus this team. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word “team” because they weren’t really working together as a team. Anyway, this group needs to understand the basic concept that drives success in a restaurant, and here it is: “Provide good service and good food, so the customer will want to come back again” It’s that simple. Restaurants die when people stop coming. People stop coming to a restaurant because they had a “less than satisfactory experience”. If you compare the level of service of this Julio’s location to the other locations, it’s evident that the values, perspective, and mindset that help drive success in a business are fading. I wonder how long we would have waited if I didn’t get the attention of the server that happened to walk by our table.