TIPS @ Taberna Del Alabadero
Establishment: Taberna Del Alabadero
Location: Belltown
Want to keep 15% of your tips? Want to wait a couple weeks to get them? Want to have managers cherry-pick the best tables for themselves? Want an idiot sommier running around to all your tables and not tell you anything? Work for Taberna Del Alabadero! No service permits of any kind neccessary.
These idiots are microwaving entrees in an open kitchen, and slinging farm raised Atlantic Salmon and frozen New Zealand mussels. Clams sit out all shift with no ice or refrigeration and are open and dead by the time they toss them in that Paella you ordered. That suckling pig sat out on the counter ALL DAY before they decided to throw it in the oven.
Don’t work here, definately don’t eat here.
Comments
WOW! I interviewed at this place a few months ago, and was rather disappointed that I didn’t get a callback. After passing by the restaurant many times and seeing it mostly empty, I felt somewhat better. Now that I have read your review, I am ecstatic I didn’t have the chance to work there. I noticed that there is a Craigslist ad for a “Belltown Spanish Restaurant” right now, so they obviously don’t know how to treat their staff. Sure, restaurants have turnover, but a new place with good management usually doesn’t lose people so quickly.
I do have to add this: If you can’t spell “sommelier” then I might have to question your experience and knowledge. I think your comments on Taberna Del Albadero are valid, but are you really a service professional? An idiot sommelier is kind of par for the course…. just sell the wine upfront to guests and let them know it may be a while and ’should i hold your food order until i know the wine has arrived’? Let your guests know that if it were up to you, the wine would be there in under 3 minutes, it’s not your fault, goodness, hasn’t it arrived YET? etcetc. Trust me, they will gladly take your part in letting the sommelier know he moves at the speed of slug, AND you get to showcase his/her incompetence without having to worry about him/her ‘calling’ you on it.
As to the management ‘cherry picking’ tables….been there, seen it more often than one should. As a waiter who has worked in many cities, both in the US and internationally, I opine that Seattle is the most difficult city in which to find a decent gig than any others I have lived in (New York–Manhattan–, Austin, Vancouver, B.C., Madrid, Anchorage, Monte-Carlo, Munich, etcetc you get the picture). I am sorry you had to deal with these a@@holes and I hope you have found something mucho bettero heehee 
I made no claims on my wealth of experience and knowledge when it comes to sommeliers, this is the first place that I have ever worked that had one. But it seems to me that communication is key between a sommelier and the server.
Of course communication is key between sommelier and server; it is unfortunate that one so often has to deal with incompetents. I didn’t mean to be insulting, Seattlite, and apologize if I was. Your review of Taberna Del Albadero will probably save some people from the misery you experienced. I wish you the best in finding a good server job; they are hard to come by in the current economic climate (we do live off of the fat of the land after all), but springtime is coming……..and so are the tourists.:)
*definitely
Oops!