J S.
Yelp
We went to Penny Drip on a hot summer early evening, and it was fairly busy, but we didn't have a problem getting a seat and we found a table that was not in the sun. The crowd was mostly 30ish or younger. The garage style doors were open and it is on the corner of a busy 4 lane street, so many times the sound of loud motorcycles and cars drowned out the conversation and the music. As it was early evening the sun was shining in the place and about 90 degrees.
You seat yourselves, and you order at the counter, and then someone brings out the drinks and food to your table. So it is a minimal service restaurant, but when you pay, before even getting your food, you are still presented with the option on the pad to tip the usual 15%, 20% 25% or custom. Tipping used to be based on service after the fact, as this is a half self service I'm not sure anything over 10% is justified, although I did give them a decent tip, I'm not sure that was justified for just bringing our food out. Anyway, that is an industry wide issue and not specific to PD.
The expensive drinks were very good tasting. I ordered a Cafe Mexicano but they were out of an ingredient so I got the Black Margarita, $12. The others ordered a vodka and tonic and one of the other designer drinks. The margarita came in a very small glass which was filled with mostly a single very large but cool ice cube wit PD initials. The drinkable portion was very good, but maybe half a cup or less. The other drink, $12, was also in a small sized stemmed glass, smaller even than a champaign glass. She said it was good. The vodka and tonic, $10, was reported to have little to no vodka.
The BLT was excellent, but for $16, I don't know. The flatbread pickle chicken pizza, $16, was not my thing, and we also had the avacado toast, $10. I've had better. Everything seemed to be drenched in olive oil.
We are older, so maybe this is not our demographic, and maybe it would be better as a coffee place in the morning or lunch. The person who rang me up was very nice, but the person who dropped off our food seemed indifferent when we asked for something, so I kind of felt like I overtipped.
Would I go back? Maybe for a coffee or breakfast bagle, or maybe lunch. If I was a young hipster with money on a date, I might hang out there, but I'm not.