Eclipsed by Crescent Moon
July 18th, 2008 by Curt Holman in Best Of, RestaurantsAs research for our upcoming Best of Atlanta issue, I took my wife and daughter to Crescent Moon at Northlake Mall. All three of us have enjoyed the place in the past, and Monday night is Family Night, allowing kids to eat free off the versatile children’s menu. Alas, we ended up eating Chic-Fil-A at the mall’s food court instead.
There was no wait, but our first warning sign came when the Crescent Moon hostess offered to seat us at a booth near the counter. A visibly tense server strode over and told the hostess that he also had an 11-party table on the other side of the restaurant, and he would have trouble paying attention to anyone sitting in that booth. He was so clearly stressed out that my family and I should have just left then, but we took a seat in a more populated part of the restaurant instead.
It was a struggle to get the servers to take our orders, or even acknowledge our existence. At one point my wife talked to the manager, who sent a server over. She said, “I’ll just take your drink orders real quick.” When she brought our two waters and milk, I told her we were ready to order (we had plenty of time to peruse the menu), but she told us, “I’ll send over your server.” He never came. I have no idea if our table’s assigned server was Verge-Of-Losing-It Guy, or somebody else. We were there for about half an hour, then gave up to hit the food court, over my daughter’s protests. As much as we appreciate Crescent Moon providing a family night — a face painter called “Fancy” was on hand — if the restaurant can’t handle the modest crowd, it doesn’t seem worth the offer.
Since that visit, I’ve had several friends tell me that they’ve had bad experiences at Crescent Moon, one of whom even tore up her “frequent diner” cards in front of the manager and vowed never to come back .
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I have to say that I went to this place a couple of times and never was impressed. It looks good on the outside, but when you go in the service and food just do not add up to anything more than average at best.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
We also had an aborted visit to CM on a family night and ended up with Chick-fil-A. We couldn’t even get anyone to seat us and toddlers don’t want to wait that long. We used to love the Decatur location, but service has been going steadily downhill for the past year or so.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Yea, the one in Decatur has been going downhill for a while, now. Last time I went there, and it will remain the last time, I ordered a bagel deluxe. Instead of the pepper rings, it now has capers, which is just wrong. But the crime, the true crime, was the crusty, dried, nasty cream cheese that was as yellow as butter on my plate. I could not believe they served that to me! They HAD to see that it was nasty, and they left it there anyway. Never. Again.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
We used to LOVE the one in Decatur–great pancakes, fried chicken, and meatloaf. When the new owner came in they redecorated it in the most hideous way (giant floor tiles on the walls and out-of-place neon strips inside). It was so ugly we couldn’t bear to go in. But we had been “regulars” at the Decatur location and we gave it a try. Service and food were poor. It is such a disappointment and a loss for Decatur because they used to be the best breakfast in the Decatur.