Salacia. You Need to Get Your Stuff Together.

Oh Salacia, where do I begin?

This is supposed to be about food, and I will get there, but I first must address your ultimate marketing FAIL. You see I am in marketing, and I know when you are going to run a promotion you better have your sh*t together. You Salacia, did not – and because of that you’ve really pissed me off.

See me loving people who use social media for marketing.

Early in the week I saw a post on the SkyBar Facebook page. For those who are not familiar, Salacia, Catch 31 and SkyBar are all establishments in the Hilton at 31^st Street in Virginia Beach. The post announced that if you dined at Catch 31 or Salacia this week they would give you a free passport pin to the American Music Festival. So I thought “awesome!” I love the American Music Festival, I planned to purchase a passport pin ($35 pass to see all the music acts at the 5^th Street stage over Labor Day weekend), and I planned to eat at Salacia since it is on the top ten Hampton Roads restaurants.

After spending a couple hundred bucks on food and wine we were told that they RAN OUT of passport pins. WHAT? When I posted my comment of FB about what a great offer it was, how come they didn’t comment back that they had run out? I mean it was the SAME DAY as my reservation. Get it together people. The manager attempted to make good with the offer for tickets to see the band at the adjacent park that evening. That show was already in progress and due to the number of Q-tips I had the displeasure of creeping behind like they’ve never been a parking garage, I’m thinking the show wasn’t meant for my demographic. I WANT MY DANG PASSPORT PINS! At this point it is principle. You advertised a promotion and you completely failed. That is a big no-no, it’s called false advertising.

Now that I’ve covered that, let’s get to the food.

I love establishments that allow you to make reservations online. Salacia participates in OpenTable and I was easily able to secure my time early afternoon when I’m sure the restaurant wasn’t even open. Having been in Catch a few times I was familiar with where Salacia was, however – it was still a bit confusing which hostess stand to visit and we ended up walking straight into the dining room without passing go or collecting $200 (or our passport pins). You also have to walk past the kitchen to get there - how fine dining is that? The dining room is small and cold. Not just in temperature, but just not a warm, friendly space.

We started with splitting a Salacia Caesar salad. I loved the crisp, triangle Parmesan cracker that adorned the top of the salad. For my entrée I went with the waiter’s suggestion of the Surf And Turf. I was contemplating the salmon but didn’t want to make the mistake of ordering seafood at a steak house. I enjoyed the six ounce filet, and eight ounce Maine Lobster tail. However, having been to Byrd and Baldwin, if I want a great steak I’m going to head to Norfolk rather than back to Salacia.

 

The best part of the meal was the bottle of wine and dessert. We really enjoyed Valle Perdido Malbec2006 from Argentina. It was super clean and smooth. The strawberry tart was equally delicious.

The service was good but I think I was expecting more with an AAA Four-Diamond designation. I checked out exactly what that means and I wasn’t off base with my expectations since it states, “The equally proficient service staff demonstrates a strong desire to meet or exceed guest expectations.” Did I mention the passport pin fail?

So I can cross this one off of the list. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t disappointed with the food. It was good, but it wasn’t exceptional or creative. I just wasn’t dazzled like I’ve been at other top ten establishments.

Don’t believe me? Check out their own website pulling reviews from OpenTable. The first two aren’t exactly “glowing.” 

Salacia, here's a free piece of marketing advice. Get a new social media employee. Whomever it is is failing your brand. There are several unanswered questions of the SkyBar page. The point of social media is to connect and respond. Social media = fail.

*Update* After posting the above and pushing it out via Twitter and Facebook, Gold Key PHR, which is the management company for the Hilton, sent me a make good message. We got our pins, yay!