Mythili M.
Yelp
This review is for the Polar Ice Lounge on Harriet's rooftop *only*.
It's a great idea, but 2/10 for execution.
FYI, when my reservation was cancelled due to warm (inclement) weather that presumably melted the ice, they did give me a full refund.
I do remember thinking it was surprising that there were so many available reservations for the Polar lounge, but, in hindsight, it makes sense. It is simply not worth it. We ran into a whole gamut of issues:
The elevators in the lobby do not go to the floor with the Polar lounge. You have to find a hotel assoc. to operate the elevator for you and until you find someone you're stuck waiting. 1HBB would really benefit from a "call" button. Or, you know, just allow visitors to access non-guest room floors like most hotels do? I was stuck downstairs in the lobby until someone upstairs serendipitously called the elevator to the floor I was trying to reach.
Once checked in, we were offered coats to help keep warm--well, one person was because they ran out out of size M by the time of our reservation at 8 PM. Gloves would have been very useful, to go with the (few) coat they lent out. And in fairness, I learned, upon leaving, that they did have gloves to offer, but all were gone by the time of the time of our reservation
as well.
Once shown to our table, servers stopped by the table intermittently. For reference, there were around 25-30 people on the rooftop while we were there and in terms of space, I would estimate under 25% capacity of the venue.
We were given, ~12 tokens to exchange for drinks. There are 5 possible drinks and 4/5 of them are tequila because of some partnership with some tequila brand. If you don't like tequila, you're might be SOL. I ordered was a Mt. Harriet, which tasted like a 7/11 slushee. It was even red!
One of my party was showed up very intoxicated (apparently they served her downstairs at Harriet's Lounge despite being visibly drunk). I refused to get her any alcoholic beverages. I asked our server for water. None was ever brought to us. I asked the bartender if he had any water or nonalcoholic drinks, and he said no. Later, he said he had lime soda (an ingredient for one of the cocktails), which was better than nothing. I find it kind of odd and concerning that a bar doesn't serve water. Is that not a safety or liability issue?
The actual cocktails are served in "cups" made of ice, which is initially very neat but after a few minutes, I was getting frostbite on my fingers from the cup. So, when I went back for another drink, I asked the bartender if he could pour me a drink in a normal cup. He said he wasn't supplied with any normal cups or glasses to use on the roof.
The hors d'oeuvre, which were 6 wafers with crème fraise and caviar, was bad.
The actual experience on the rooftop was mid. While the ice furniture is cool to look at (it's illuminated by lights) it's covered in ratty-looking fur throws, which look like they've seen better days but they do insulate you from the ice. But setup of the tables is awkward for six people to comfortably sit around and have a conversation so we all mostly stood.
Additional blankets either to drape over ourselves would have made it much more comfortable and actually made us want to stay.
Hand warmers would also have been really useful because the weather was 30 degrees out that evening and, again, we're drinking out of cups made of ice.
We didn't even end up staying for the entire duration of our reservation. After 30-45 minutes, we were sick of the entire experience and asked if we could move indoors to Harriet's Lounge, but were told that we'd have to wait in line. Your table reservation from Harriet's Rooftop does not transfer to the Lounge, fyi. They also advised us that we couldn't use our leftover drink tokens at the indoor bar. So, we finished our drinks in the lobby and had to shuttle back upstairs to use our last tokens.
I will say that the service staff overall is hospitable and friendly. They tried very much to be accommodating when we requested what we needed. Simply they were simply not equipped or supplied to help us through no fault of their own.
The staff did come all the way down to the lobby to collect the coat I borrowed (were they afraid I was going to steal it? They already had my ID) and offered to retrieve my coat from coat check as well!
The price point for a table reservation for 1-6 people is $435.00, which comes out to roughly $33 per cocktail (which is ~2x what top ranked nyc cocktail bars charge for actually potable cocktails) and a plate of caviar topped crackers. So you can see why I expected more substance.
They're not providing anything quality in terms of drinks or food, so I expected them to go above and beyond in the experience, but sadly they just didn't deliver.
The view is great, but you don't need to suffer through the Polar lounge to enjoy it, just come back during spring, summer, or fall.
