"I heard that The Fainting Goat was closing this week via The Washingtonian. I was sorry to hear that and when a friend picked this U Street eatery to meet prior to seeing David Cross at the Lincoln Theater, I thought it would be a a nice way to say goodbye to an establishment that had been such a U Street corridor mainstay.First off, I 'm not greeted with a hello or welcome or any other pleasantries by the person who sat me, I was greeted with An automatic service fee of 20% will be added to your check. I assumed this was the automatic tip. It was not. It was in addition to the tip. (NOTE: Let me preface the rest of the review with the declaration that I am absolutely not a snooty foodie and my tastes are pretty mainstream. But the food and drink have to not only be worth the price I 'm paying for them, they have to, well, taste good. I then thought, well the service must be really attentive. It was not. I wouldn 't say it was subpar but it was more like the goodwill of Republican politicians in that it was nonexistent. No big deal, I thought, I checked out the menu online so there were some drink options I thought looked pretty inter nope. Not on the QR code accessed menu where you had your choice of half a dozen or so craft cocktails, some $9 beers, or other spirits...if they were in stock (many weren 't .Like the drink menu, the food menu was also lacking so I thought I would get one of the pizzas I saw online. Again, nope. I had my choice of three options or build my own. I built my own with spinach, mushrooms, prosciutto and cheese. Thin crust, I thought, would be a bit easier on my waistline. Cool.Not only was the pizza overcooked, it just didn 't taste good. At least not up to the standard of a U Street Mainstay as the Washingtonian dubbed it.So when you couple the substandard (or totally absent service with the borderline mediocre menu selections plus the new mandatory 20% because we 're a trendy hotspot on U Street fee, The Fainting Goat closing it 's doors is not putting itself out of its misery so much as relieving our misery.My experience at The Fainting Goat reminded me of an incident many years ago when a terrible employee resigned while I was in the process of submitting paperwork to fire her (of which she was not aware; she thought she was awesome. ; by the Wednesday of her last week when she simply wasn 't contributing at all, I told her to just go ahead and leave. That 's my advice to The Fainting Goat as well: You 're doing nobody any favors by staying if this is the best you can do. UPDATE: After this review was posted, I was informed by a savvy friend that the 20% Service Fee is due to a new law voted on by DC residents in November 2022 to phase out tip credit over the coming years. However, new law or not, that doesn 't excuse the lacking menu or service."
