Trio's Restaurant and Jazz Club

I dined at Trio's on Saturday, February 23rd, with a large group (party of 18) prior to attending a formal event in downtown South Bend. The experience was so awful that I e-mailed management AND decided to create a Yelp account to comment here.

First, we were notified an hour and a half before our reservation that the restaurant was having issues in the kitchen and that our reservation would need to be pushed back by an hour. I understand that "things happen," but this was not the start to the night that we were looking for and it certainly is not easy to coordinate a change in reservation for a party of 18 approximately an hour before the original seating time.

When our party arrived at the restaurant, we waited almost 5 minutes to be greeted and shown to our seats - the dining room was less than half full at this point. After being seated, it took over an hour for our drink order to be completed. Once our drinks were delivered, I asked the waiter if we could put in our dinner order. The server responded quite rudely telling me that "[he] just finished our drink order" and "he told us that they were short staffed." At this point, there were two servers working in the main dining room and four parties (including ours).  We asked if we could have some bread and were told that it was "currently baking". We never received bread, nor were our water glasses refilled during the course of the night. On numerous occasions, members of our party were forced to walk to the bar to get drinks, because the wait staff was either inattentive or not present.

Once our meals arrived, the situation was no better. Some members of our party did not receive their orders and did not even get the opportunity to eat dinner. The chicken in one person's creole pasta (served with a red sauce, not a cream sauce like indicated on the menu) was completely raw and inedible. This person was sick the day after, which was directly correlated to the food preparation at Trio's. Two individuals ordered salmon: one plate was overcooked like a brick, the other was undercooked like Sashimi. All-in-all the quality of the food was awful.

At the end of the meal, we were informed that checks could not be split for our party and we would be required to pay with one credit card - restaurant policy was cited as the reasoning for this. I went ahead and covered the tab, but I have never been to a restaurant that would not split checks or allow for multiple forms of payment for such a large check. You can only imagine how inconvenient this is for a party of 18.

Our server reduced our bill for the amount of the food that was either sent back or did not arrive, however, by no means do I feel that this fairly compensated us for the experience. Quite frankly, I've never had a dining experience like this in my life. We made reservations one week in advance, so it is quite perplexing how the restaurant could be so short staffed and unprepared. Furthermore, I must reiterate that the service and quality of the food was terrible.

My friends and I are graduate students at ND and are very active in the South Bend restaurant community. My girlfriend and I eat out in the area weekly. We have been to the Trio's bar a few times before, but this was our first time in the main dining room. We certainly will never be going back to Trio's again and I will suggest to everyone else that I know to avoid this place like the plague.

I ate at Trio's last night as part of a large party.  We had around 18 people, and the waiter immediately explained that they were understaffed that evening.  As I know large parties can be difficult to manage even with a full staff I definitely would not take off star ratings based on the service being a little slow. However, the speed of service was the least of my concerns about Trio's.  

The first thing I noticed was that Trio's menu is much different (read, more limited) than it is on their website.  The waiter also explained that they did not have a drink menu.  It took about an hour for everyone to get their drinks, which was not a huge deal since our large group was enjoying catching up.  We finally ordered, and after about another hour our entrees were served, or most of them were.  Out of the 18 people in our group 1 person never received her entree, another was brought the incorrect dish, my wife's chicken was served raw (not just a little pink, it was literally not cooked through), and the two people who ordered salmon found that one was very underdone, and the other was extremely overcooked.  The majority of the other dishes were cold when they arrived.

The manager did come out and apologize to our group, and took a few items off of our bill.  However, when 2 meals are completely inedible, and we still have a 20% service charge for the mess we received, I still feel like we got fleeced.  I definitely will never be eating at Trio's again and would recommend avoiding this place at all costs for dinner.  There are many far superior restaurants within a one block radius Downtown, do yourself a favor and give one of them a shot instead.

The one star I give this place can be attributed to the bar area, which seemed like a nice atmosphere to have a drink and listen to some live jazz.

Trio's is really going down hill!  Dined with hubby before a show downtown and on a Friday night they were 3/4 empty!  Decided to dine at the bar and had to wait for a menu because they didn't have any extras (??)....  was told right away "we're out of this and out of that so you cannot order it" again on a Friday night?  Ordered a Sidecar Martini that was supposed to be made with Cointreau Liquor and was told "sorry we're out of Cointreau so used Triple Sec. There is NO comparison of those two liquors, total step down to Triple Sec and the martini tasted like it.  Ordered Ratatouille, a dish that was supposed to sauteed vegetables over cous cous topped with feta cheese and hubby ordered a Chicken Poorboy sandwich, neither of which were served as the menu specified, mine was basically a few types of veggie with some sort of tomato sauce over RICE which when the bartender delivered it after a half hour wait he casually said "it's over rice, sorry" and had no feta either.  Hubby's sandwich was basically a fried chicken breast on a bun with lettuce and a side of mayo with some spices thrown into it.  We were hungry and had a show to catch so ate if and left.  If you are out of something or are making changes to a dish as advertised on the menu tell your customer BEFORE they get it to allow them to make changes if they want to, not as an after thought as you're delivering the food or drink and then running.   Not a good sign when a restaurant seems to be "out of" everything on a Friday night.  Friendly enough staff but we won't be returning when Cafe Navarre and Lasalle Grill are close by!