Pars Cuisine

Tonight six of us planned to go to Pars for the first time. We knew it was an Albuquerque favorite (according to the Alibi), and half of us arrive first and put our names on the list. The manager [owner?] knew we were a party of 6, and he did not have any qualms with us showing up without a reservation. And he recommended the "floor"/low seating for our group. Well, one extra person showed up (for a total of 7 adults), and as soon as the manager found out we had 7, he became very agitated and annoyed. He actually complained to us that he thought we were going to have 6, and now we had 7 .

The server seated us in a tiny corner where we had to squish into a table, and my friend's knees were literally in her chest as her chair was butted up against another table. Then the manager came back to try to seat a group of 7 people right next to us, but there wasn't any room for the other party to sit as we were already butted up against their table. The manager proceeded to try to shove the other table against our chairs and asked if my friend could move [she couldn't because her knees were up against her chest]. By then we were thoroughly in a foul mood as there was plenty of other seating with more room, but we were still shoved in a corner.

The one husband in our group was so annoyed [and a former server himself] he went to talk to the manager about our experience, and the manager complained to him about our group of 7 people and how he was only prepared to handle 6, not 7. I was quite upset [having been a restaurant manager myself, I couldn't believe the manager so clearly showed his irritation at our group of 7. If he didn't have room for us, he should have said so.] and so was the rest of our party. We spent good money and received foul treatment -- I never would have allowed any of my staff to treat paying customers the way he did.

My caveat is that the wait staff was fabulous, and they were clearly being overworked with the number of tables they were required to wait upon. The 17-ish-looking hostess looked like she was ready to cry.

I hope our experience is not the norm, but I can tell you that we won't be going there again. Because the manager was so unwilling to move us from our table, or comp us in any way, he was thoroughly warned we would share our experience. Future customers have a right to know.