Nex Last year, my family and I went to Baltimore to see the Christmas lights on 34th street. Afterwards, we found a new restaurant: The Food Market. Although it was busy and filled with people, they soon found us a table. We had great food with great service.

This year, we went to see the lights again and afterwards were hoping to dine at the same place. Boy, were we wrong.

We knew there would be a lot of people so we wanted to make a reservation, which was not an available option on Opentable, so we figured we would just have to be lucky. We stopped by before looking at the lights, and they told us that the next table would be ready in one hour and a half. We took it, thinking we could spend time looking at the lights and shopping around in the boutiques.

Two hours later, waiting on the tiny sofa shoved in the corner behind the bar, a table finally cleared. The arrogant hostess informed us that we couldn’t sit there because another party who wasn’t there yet reserved it, even though they didn’t take reservations, and two other tables were about to be cleared.

When we pointed this out to the hostess, she rudely denied the table, but she offered another 20-minute wait if we wanted the other table, which was about to clear. When we told her we already waited two hours and were going to leave if not given the table, she gave us an “OK” and a shoulder shrug.

We had never experienced the rude service or long wait before at a restaurant. Two hours for one table with younger kids who were complaining and hungry, but not one hostess cared. The best part was on our way out, when there wasn’t even one apology given for our inconvenience.

We ended up eating at the Woodberry Kitchen, a restaurant which was also packed but still found a table for us within twenty minutes, and even apologized for the “long wait,” which was quite refreshing.

Within those twenty minutes, my mom wrote an enraged review of our treatment at The Food Market and she rated The Food Market one star. Only ten minutes after she posted it on their Facebook page and yelp.com, the owner called her on her cell phone to apologize for the trouble.

If only they sat us as quickly as they read their reviews…

I am interested to see what happens next time we go to The Food Market. I don’t know now, but I do know that the Woodberry Kitchen is only five minutes away if we need a delightful meal served with a smile.

Pia Scotto is a Community Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.