Sophia V.
Yelp
I wish I could give this establishment 0 stars.
It was one of my friend's last weekend (10/24/15) in NYC and after eating in Chinatown, we walked downtown chatting looking for someplace to stop and grab a drink. I work on Harrison street, pass Puffy's every day, and have had multiple customers recommend I stop in-so we did. I wish I could go back in time and change our decision.
Upon entering it's nothing special, it was crowded because a work event was being held there-no problem to us because we just stood by the bar. But the real issue, the reason that I made myself this account to review, is the bartender. She was downright nasty for no reason when we were nothing but polite to her.
We ordered, and after taking our orders she singled out one person in our group to ID (we were all of age, and ironically they happened to be the oldest-though they were also male so I'm guessing women are rarely carded). When he asked "why me?" she rudely responded "because you look like you're like, 12." (keep in mind he's 22, and wasn't snarky in his question, just curious.)
After we were served another of my friends was putting her change away, and the bartender turned to her and said "you know, if you want to keep being served you're going to have to tip, that's just a fact." Now, we were planning to order a few drinks and stay awhile, and would have tipped at the end of our tab. HOWEVER, regardless if we did or did not, you don't treat customers this way. As someone who has worked in the service industry, you must treat customers with respect-and if you come at them nasty and rude, you're not going to be tipped (we didn't tip her. Not after being treated like that.) We drank the drinks we paid for and got the hell out of there.
I understand everyone has off days here and there, and had she apologized it would have made a wold of difference. However, she didn't, she was rude when we gave her no reason to be, and it's unfortunate because I work only a few doors down and certainly would have recommended it to people and made it a "usual" spot. Alas, I will take my hard earned money elsewhere.
*Sidenote-I can't help feeling like she treated us this way because we were obviously the youngest people in there (though we were all of legal age). Either way, there's no excuse for her behavior, and we'll never come here again.