KC Starlight VIP Club

Betsy and I attended the performance of Footloose at Starlight Thursday.  Wasn’t really interested in the show, though it was better than I expected, But what I really wanted to do a review of this time, was the VIP Club dining, this year catered by Plaza Catering, which also runs Cinzetti’s Italian Market Restaurant in Overland Park, KS.

When we purchased our season dining passes for Starlight this year, we received gift coupons to Cinzetti’s which we tried out before our first visit to Starlight.

Cinzetti’s is a single price restaurant with a large central marketplace-style display kitchen that includes fourteen exhibition cooking stations offering classic Italian foods. Each time we have gone they asked us if we had been there before, and offered us a tour before we started our dining experience. The buffet is a feast to both eye and palate. In fact, it was so excellent that we had high hopes for our visit to the Starlight VIP Club.

Which was a minor let-down.  Don’t get me wrong, the food at Starlight was very good.  But we had experienced such a high quality of food at Cinzetti’s that it didn’t seem to measure up.

Now, I say all that to get to the one other really important point about my dining review.  In previous years, the Hereford House had catered to Starlight.  Now, with a premiere beef name catering, you’d expect to have excellent beef served. But I always found whatever beef entree was being served to be dry and tough.

This year, Plaza Catering, associated with an Italian Restaurant, and no special connection to beef, has always had a beef entree that has been better, more moist and tender, than the most moist and tender beef I ever experienced while Hereford House was catering.

On Thursday they had something that sounded unusual and not especially appealing: salmon in barbecue sauce. Amazingly, it was quite good. the balance of the barbecue sauce and the fish was perfect. They also had mini-sliders that you could prepare with your own choice of pulled chicken, pork or beef.  I served mine up with just the sauce already on the pork.  Betsy tried pouring the sauce out of the available bottles.  She expected the consistency of ketchup; instead it was the consistency of viniagrette and went all over her plate and the floor.

Last night was also the first time this year that we experienced extensive lines at the buffet.  I think we each spent at least 25 minutes of our dining experience waiting in line. And since we finished our plates and went up at different times, it meant we didn’t get to dine together as much as we might otherwise have.

Overall this year the service of Plaza Catering was good, though they still haven’t quite got all the service points smoothed out.  We think the long lines came from trying to make things nicer and fancier.  If they had broken up the lines into more stations, like at Cinzetti’s, things might have moved faster with less clutter.

One other thing we noticed last night: for the first time on our table was a card inside the centerpiece that said “thank you” and “gratuity not included.” Now, gratuity has been sort of a hot topic at Starlight in previous years.  When we first started attending the VIP Club gratuity wasn’t included, and since it was a buffet, and since we didn’t purchase any of the extra-price beverages, we tended to tip a dollar or two per person.  Then came a year where they switched caterers, and suddenly there were these bright pink cards in our final sign-out letting us know that expected gratuity was 20-30%. Well, as a student of Miss Manners I was shocked at this breach of common etiquette.  A gratuity is a gift, not something you should expect, and not something you should so brazenly mention.  I wrote in. I think several others did too. Because next time and for years afterward, gratuity was included.

So I never saw anything this year about a gratuity until last night.  And of course I hadn’t carried any cash on me, because I hadn’t expected to need it.  I liked my waiter — would have give him a tip if I had known to be prepared.  I came away feeling bad that this change wasn’t more clearly spelled out. I’m still a fan of paying a higher front price, giving the staff a decent wage, and not worrying about a tip, But if there is to be a policy change, I wish it would be more clearly spelled out (though not in the brazen manner of the previous “expectation” of tip).

So, to conclude, I hope Plaza Catering wants to do VIP Club next year, and I hope Starlight wants to hire them again. And I hope the gratuity thing gets worked out and spelled out clearly next year (slightly higher price no tip is my suggestion). And if you haven’t been to Cinzetti’s — go soon.