Janet C.
Yelp
Let me start by saying that, based on the preview of the restaurant on the website, I was predisposed to love the place. And the decor and the food and the service was really good.
This is where it gets weird. We were already parked in the lot and sat at our table when the valet comes in to tell us we need to pay $40 to park in the lot (per car) or pay $20 to have the valet take our car to the secured lot (per car). That's extreme. And there's only signage that says street parking isn't safe to use the paid lot or the valet. No where does it say that the valet is $40 a car (at breakfast!) or that the lot we had already parked in was valet only or where the other lot was for $20. That should be established by signage at the valet stand or at the entrance to the lot. It should at least be somewhere on the website that this is the parking situation.
Once we resolved that (by moving our cars), we ordered, ate our food, but didn't linger. And it's sad because the food was good and our server was a delight. I might've stayed there longer and ate and drank more....but it's just as well that I didn't because the tab for a table for four was $197. I guess if we have one $38 carafe of mimosas (which was classic orange but they may have upcharged us for pineapple since they didn't have orange juice), and ok, I had $19 pancakes, and a $20 breakfast sandwich, plus a cajun pasta and jerk lamb and eggs which were more, I guess I can get there. But when the server presented the check, there was an option for a 3, 5, or 7% tip. So, that's when the server explained there's a 23% service charge to cover all servers, food runners, etc. So 3, 5 or 7% additional would go only to the server. I shouldn't learn about it after the meal by noticing that the tip amount options weren't the usual 15, 20, 22, or 25% amounts and asking the server for more details. When she presented the bill, she listed out what we'd ordered which was correct then presented me the toast machine with the total. Again, this should be on the website, the menu, or both. Over $200 for a table of four for breakfast for an hour was not what we were expecting. If we'd have thrown another $40-80 on top of that for parking, well, I know it's midtown but it's not in midtown Manhattan. It was a bummer. We won't be back and it's not the servers' or the kitchen's fault. Management should really do better by them and their customers.