I am not one to complain about restaurants; I'll let mis-orders slide; I'll tip the distracted waitress. But there are some instances that fall so below par that not saying something feels like a crime to its future patrons. I went to a corporate Christmas party at The Horn, a restaurant/club at Tyler and Kellogg, and this was one of those times. Frankly, I feel this business should be called out on this and if I can keep people from going there, I'd feel much better about my mistreatment.

Firstly, please note that if you are not drinking alcohol, all WATER AND SODA is $3.00-absolutely no refills without paying another $3. Our waitress did not inform us until two 8oz Styrofoam cups of water (half filled with ice) later, but apparently it's posted on signs on the wall near the ceiling(!). This is apparently not the place to be if you are the designated driver, plan on eating the food and/or have a sore throat like me. Even prisons give convicts water for free-this is simply not an acceptable business practice.

Secondly, on the website (www.thehornonline.com - judge this flash-trash book by the cover, folks), the wait-staff is described only as "7 attractive Girls, " which sums up the professionalism I should have also expected from our waitress. She was never around and ditzy when she was. My meal came with multiple side options, which I only learned about after I flagged her down and quizzed her on each one. Really, if you offer 5 salad dressings, 2 potatoes and 2 vegetables, and they aren't posted on your menu, I should not have to ask, "And what are your salad dressings?...And what are your potato choices...and what are your vegetable choices?" That's not my job. I'm not getting paid to eat here, although I should have been.

We waited for our appetizer for 15 minutes, which turned out to just be overpriced, over-salted bar food, and we wouldn't see our fast food-grade hamburger and chicken strips for another 45 minutes. After a while, the others at our table gave up waiting for the waitress and went to the bar to get their own drinks. When the food arrived, it was in various stages of being over- and undercooked; from half-frozen mozzarella sticks, cold nachos to burnt hamburgers and overdone canned corn, it was all pretty repulsive. Our waitress never asked how the food was and completely disappeared after she brought my (white, bitter and disgusting) salad, which she initially forgot.

My friend and I were on a tight budget and exceptionally hungry, and we did our best to choke down our $30 barfood sans water, but we could only take so much. Thirsty and fed up with poor service and excessively loud, drunk patrons next to us, we waited for the waitress to come around with our check. She never did. I was coughing so violently from the smoke, my cold and the lack of water that we had to get up and go to the bar to talk to the manager. He unapologetically dismissed our complaints and basically told us to deal with it. We stood at the bar, unassisted and ignored, for a good 5 minutes before the waitress was found and brought us our bill, whining all the way about how we didn't tell her we were having problems. She wasn't EVER there and never asked, so we didn't bother talking to her. We're paying her and we certainly aren't required to say anything. If she was doing her job properly, she would have asked and we wouldn't have had any problems.

I paid the bill and the undeserved automatic 20% gratuity that came with being with the party and we left, fuming. To top off our beautiful night at The Horn, our waitress, my money theoretically in hand, turned to us on our way out and said, "Have a nice f**king day!"

There are plenty of clubs AND restaurants in Wichita run by people who deserve your business. They have music, relaxing atmospheres, charming wait-staff, nonsexist hiring policies and well-made websites and free water whenever you want it. If you have a conscience and desire to support good Wichita entertainment, I urge you to patronize one of those clubs. We don't need trashy places like The Horn claiming to be "The finest club in Wichita" dragging Wichita's entertainment scene down.