Jane Swift

Review of Gramercy Bistro bar

Made reservations for a large party for Easter Bru...

Made reservations for a large party for Easter Brunch. I don't think they had the right staff for the number of reservations they took. Our party and several others were left at check in for LONG stretches of time with no information and no staff. The host was also the bartender it seems. I was probably a little uncharacteristically short with him when he finally appeared and rather than an apology he was MORE testy back and said something about it being hard when other tables don't leave (he had told us when we checked in a half hour earlier that even though we were a little early, the table was ready and he would get it ready and seat us early ... we weren't seated for another half hour, 10 minutes AFTER our reservation and never spoken to in the interim.). There were several large tables and it was pretty clear from then on that they weren't too thrilled to have us there -- which was odd because, again, we had made a reservation and they could have easily told us to go somewhere else. The food was a mixed bag -- the pancakes with blueberries that my kids and husband had that were more like a muffin were apparently awesome. But the scrambled eggs were runny (my husband asked for his 'dry' and so his weren't) -- I know some people like them this way -- I don't. Do if you like scrambled eggs cooked, make sure to specify. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was the hashbrowns. They were literally small potatoes cut up and pan seared and I would be hard pressed to say there was any seasoning at all. However, my sister's nicoise salad and my nephew's steak frites were also terrific. I had the Bloody Mary, virgin, and it was really well seasoned. And my side salad (even though it came out with everything else) was really good. In the "you can't make this up" category, right after we sat down there was an AWFUL smell in the restaurant. I don't know if one of the many small children had an unfortunate diaper blow out but the ventilation in the restaurant was not good and it was really tough to take. My sister finally asked to have a door propped open which helped, and the smell finally went away after about 20 minutes, but I am sure that didn't make us any friends or improve our perception. Lastly, I think it took nearly 35 - 40 minutes for our food to come out from the kitchen - again, they had two other really large parties and it seemed pretty clear that is not their strong suit. We seldom eat out on holidays - but most of us needed to travel right after the meal so we thought this would be less stressful. That was certainly not the case.