Oliver's Downtown Bar & Grill

02/25/2008 Posted by pinkypie

Oliver's is a cool joint and it irks me when reviewers on citysearch are sometimes way too harsh. I have eaten here at least 2 dozen times. Sometimes it's slow and sometimes being across from the Arlene Schnitzer is's super busy. i walk out on those nights cuz i know it's going to be awhile. I learnt this by experience and when my meal was late the manager made sure i got a heafty discount and loads of apologies. The other times i have been there, the staff are friendly, the food great. sorry to hear the person below didn't get bruchetta as theirs is so delicious. It's made with toasted chiabatta, a tomato topping that is great and drizzled with a balsamic reduction that makes my mouth water just writing about it. well worth the $7.00 as it's a meal by itself. On their busy nights it can get hectic and as far as the "layout" , how can a business get criticized for a floor plan that i think just comes with the building and don't you think if there was a grease fire the place might have been made to close??? I eat out lots in Portland and in SF where I go for business a few times a month and in all my eating out I have gotten to know servers, managers and even some owners. They tell me it kills them to get cruddy reviews. Servers, Cooks, Bus Boys and Dishwashers all depend on their jobs and one off bad reviews hurt especially when mistakes happen. I think it takes a boat load of courage to open and run a restaurant and it's pretty lame that people can have one experience and then bash a business to pieces on the internet. I am sure glad that as an architect gal, who can make loads of mistakes or have bitchy days that there are no websites out there to bash my business or me personally. We all have off days, we all come under the bar on some days. ease up city search reviewers. it you have a bad time over and over then bash away. If it's the first time you had a bad time there then just remember everyone is human.

Pros: A good restaurant serving good food

Cons: be weary of nights when there are shows at the Arlene Schnitzer - very busy and kitchen can take awhile

02/19/2008 Posted by whoone

**Responding to the reviewers are too harsh...they don't have an email address on the website except for catering and obviously calling does no good. Perhaps they read my review since I ordered from there again today, because my co workers wanted to give them another shot and they had the bruchetta, You're right it would have been fabulous but they assembled it rather than putting the wet tom's and basalmic separate so it was a soggy mess by the time it got back to the office. They in the heart of downtown and set up for delivered dish too! To go shouldn't be an issue. I shoulda had a cup o noodles :( After calling the restaurant and asking to make sure that everything was available from the whole menu , and calling back again to ask a couple questions to make sure everything was clear before placing a an order during lunch for seven people when we did call to place the order, two of the items were not available which was irritating, but not as irritating as this. For the $7 they charge for bruschetta, which anywhere is at most four slices of bread and a few tablespoons of a tomato/onion/herb mixture, they do not serve it during lunch. For the pennies the cost per serving is on that dish you would think that bread, tomatoes and onion would ALWAYS be on hand and versus the cost of other items you'd be THRILLED to serve that. Frankly, that's the only reason we went there. It was my pick, and I wanted bruschetta. I was flipping thru Delivered Dish and I spied Bruschetta My luck the only Italian-esq restaurant in the city doesn't have bread and tom. on hand, and the manager or owner doesn't have the courtesy to return my phone call as to how that is. Just a question. Can I get an answer? You must not have a good answer for the moment it takes to return a customer's phone call. Fabulous customer service :( Oh, and the two things you took off the menu, the calamari and the shrimp were the best looking things you had on there.