Terrible service experience -- how mad should I be?
We had some out-of-town guests over the weekend and we took them to one of our favorite restaurants on Saturday night. We made a reservation for 7 p.m. and had plans to drop by another event nearby that ran from 8-10. Plenty of time, right?
From the moment we were seated, service was abysmal. We had to ask for menus. We had to ask for a wine list. We had to ask to place our order. Two of us sat with empty wine glasses through the entree and no one stopped by to ask if we wanted more. Our waitress finally made it by to check on the food AFTER THE TABLE HAD BEEN BUSSED. When it was time to get the check, we sat for 45 minutes between asking for the check and finally signing the slips; during the time she had our cards, she sat another table and served them their first course.
We did talk to the manager, who gave us a perfunctory apology, but by that point, our night was ruined. We walked out at 10 p.m., three hours after we walked in, completely missing the other event.
To rub salt in the wound, while all this was going on, another table of bloggers was tweeting about their fantastic experience and the restaurant was reposting pictures of the party posing with the chef and their server. At that point I lost it and called them out on Twitter -- something I NEVER do. So far, I've gotten apologies from the food cart affiliated with the restaurant, but nothing from the restaurant itself.
So here's my question: How mad should I be? And what could/should the restaurant have done to fix the situation?

I should add, the food was fantastic. That was the only redeeming quality for what was otherwise a terrible experience.
@likeswords, the other event was one of those, "drop in any time" sorts of things and a 5-minute walk from the restaurant. If check had been dropped and picked up in a timely fashion, we would have been fine. As for the wine, we weren't a group of wine-drinkers, so the two of us who were ordered by the glass. Really, until the last 20 minutes, ("WHERE DID SHE GO WITH OUR MONEY") it was more amusing than infuriating and that's when we spoke to the manager.
@erin_in_AR, I think I'll definitely send them an email, although I'm definitely gunshy about going back. And it clearly wasn't an off night -- other tables (not just the bloggers) were being served promptly. We just felt like an afterthought. I really think that they scaled back on the server handling the blogger and gave his tables to our server, who couldn't handle them.