Yesterday, we celebrated Angela T.'s birthday via surprise party at Agave, a Southwestern joint on 7th Avenue, that has brunch. What we didn't realize was we were about to also celebrate an amazingly arrogant attitude of the staff. This place is a thumbs down.

Jessica and I arrived first about five to noon, our reservation was for fifteen at noon. Jessica went to check out the ladies room, while I asked to be seated. The waiter (who turned out to be our waiter) stated that they don't seat until most of the party had arrived. The bartendress, then reiterated that our whole party would have to arrive. I reiterated that I'd like to be seated now, looking around to see that the entire restaurant (which I guess seats about 80) was empty except for one old man in the front (a different section) and a group of four in the back. She again said no. I then got to wait at the front, listening to her talk about how her new bar staff was not as stupid as she thought they would be. Good times.

Later, after a few phone calls and some arrivals, I informed the manager / hostess who had shown up, that there would only be ten of us, due to weather and illness (it had snowed heavily and two people were knocked out due to food poisoning). She said she would reset the table for ten. I then asked, a third time, that we be seated, noting again that we were a surprise party and didn't want the birthday girl to see us immediately. Again that got no attention. By now a few more people had filled the restaurant, but it was still 2/3rd empty. Further, while waiting, I heard someone ask to sit in the back and get declined because of how many people they were expecting. Be that as it may, by the time we left the restaurant had never passed 50% full.

The hostess finally asked us to sit after the birthday girl had arrived and the surprise was less than it otherwise would have been. Perfect timing?

What else:

We witnessed the busboy sticking his ungloved hands deep into the blue corn chip serving bowl to fill it. Otherwise the chips, tomatillo salsa, and pico de gallo were pretty tasty. Although, I only ate one because I kept imagining licking the busboy's hand. The plate also included some chili-dusted olives. Those were tasty, and I enjoyed spitting the pits onto their brown-paper covered tables, because no pit bowl or individual bread/chip plates were provided.

The waiter was decent, although less than attentive. Especially considering the other waiters working and less than full dining room. After watching Alton Brown whip up some tasty looking corned beef hash the night before, I eagerly ordered the Three Meat Hash, with corned beef, pastrami, and roast beef. The meat was cooked properly, but the dish had little flavor, and was far from resembling corned beef hash. Had they called it "Meat and Potatoes" (or actually "Potatoes and some Meat") it would've been more accurate. The eggs were cooked correctly though. My dish desperately called for salt and pepper (I hate under-seasoned food, especially at restaurants), but alas, none was on the table. After several minutes of attempting to call my waiter over, I got the busboy, a.k.a. Mr. Hand in Chips, to bring over salt & pepper. Then Winnie needed ketchup, he had to bring that over. Don't you love a brunch without any condiments?

The pièce de résistance: we brought a cake. We discovered there would be a $4 per person cutting fee. I walked over and double-checked that with the manager and then told her I thought that was very high, it would end up costing us $40 (plus the original cake price) to just eat some cake. I asked her to only charge us $2pp, which I thought was quite generous on my part. She (in quite the unfriendly way) declined and said that they have to charge us because otherwise they're losing out on us paying for their desserts, and how this issue has been discussed with the owner. I informed her that "No, you are just simply asking us to leave and eat elsewhere." Which we did, we walked back to our apartment and enjoyed it there, along with plenty of tea & coffee-- which could have been ordered at the restaurant. Restaurants who think they are losing out on dessert orders are plain wrong. First of all, some people would likely try their southwestern desserts anyway, had we stayed. Secondly, they absolutely lost out on the coffee & tea orders, that we all would likely have placed. Those two are probably $50 lost by themselves. But thirdly, thanks to the manager at Agave's incredibly bad attitude and Agave's poor policies have lost the chance of us ever going back. Was that really worth the $40 Agave? I think not.

To sum it up: Agave Restaurant has mediocre food; Agave has bad policies; and Agave is not a place I will ever be visiting again.

Agave is ass. Do not go there.