Rich Pallotta

Review of Kelly’s Steak and Seafood

Every COVID-19 dining experience is weird but Kell...

Every COVID-19 dining experience is weird but Kelly's made it enjoyable as possible. We dropped off our freshman at Penn State and decided to treat ourselves to our first dinner out in 5 months. We were not disappointed. The waitress was excellent and we ate on the back patio. They were conscientious, cleaned every surface and all patrons were masked when walking around. The food was excellent.

Now here's the weirder part: the bar next door named The Bar. We were told we had about a 20-minute wait and that we could go next door, get a drink and they would text me when the table was ready.

Their clientele couldn't be more different and I was even told it's the same owner. We walked over with masks on and the crowd of a dozen or so patrons sitting out front were clearly not happy to see us. I've lived in lots of places, deal with all sorts of people, but we were clearly unwelcome.

Not to say the bartender wasn't great and glad to see us. She helped my wife choose a cider and I bought a few craft beers. Walked out to the patio and holy cr@p; stared down again. I'm glad my mask was still on because I may have actually been laughing at that point. This was bizarre.

Found a table, pounded one beer, started another when the dude with the blue, shoulder-length hair in biking leather came up to the table and stared at me, my beer, then me again. Then walked away. Yah, I got the message - no polo shirts allowed.

TL;DR Kelly's was really good, avoid The Bar next door.