Chris L.
Yelp
"I..eh, well, it's okay."
That was the response to the [i'm assuming] manager who asked how things were going. She didn't seem concerned, but honestly, she should have been.
So many people have been raving about this place, and I figured, "hey, a trendy place in Audubon, gotta check this out!" Yeah, well, i did, and honestly, i left quite unimpressed. And that may come as a shock given all the four and five star ratings, but i suppose it's easy to get good reviews when the next most interesting location in a five mile radius is chickie and pete's or Chipotle. This place certainly is *trying* to be...something...but it honestly feels like they haven't yet figured it out. Upon first arrival, it looks pretty neat, and the bar area certainly is impressive. Everyone at the bar was extremely pleasant. The bar lacks hooks underneath for hanging coats, purses, etc., but that's minor. Lots of seating to the left of the entrance, with lots of TVs, and another seating section to the right of the bar. Music was varied, and fairly loud, and the room itself was very loud from all the chatter and people having to talk over the music. Is this a bar or restaurant? Later, the music changed to EDM music. Are they trying to be a club now?
The drink menu is large, and most of the drinks have a soccer theme to it. They must have lots of soccer games on some of the several giant screens all over the place. Drinks were served quickly, and both the One Touch and Lavender Lloyd have fun presentation. Lots of showmanship for sure. And they taste decent if you like the taste of sugar. Basically, and this was true for all four of our drinks, there's lots of showmanship, but the drinks are basically made from pre-made mixes (assuming in-house-made) with alcohol added later. And not much alcohol, which is surprising given the cocktails cost $15/drink. Certainly don't think that is sustainable in this area, especially given Blue Bird in Phoenixville charges closer to $10/$12 for their drinks, and you can taste the alcohol in those.
Now dinner. We had a seat at a large table, and that was nice. Some places give you tiny two-person tables and you can't fit your food, but not a problem here. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear each other across the huge table because of all the noise. They definitely need sound proofing. The menu itself is huge, and all over the place. We ordered lettuce wraps and a pizza for an appetizer, and told the waitress we would order more as we figured it out. The lettuce wraps were disappointing. Lots of chopped veggies, which is nice, but a very small portion of under-seasoned chicken and a huge amount of rice. It was bland, the only flavor coming from what appeared to be a ramekin of asian-flavored salad dressing. The pizza, fortunately, was excellent, which makes sense given they moved into the old Bertucci's building. We had planned to order a couple more dishes (we always over-order our first time to a new place), but the waitress had disappeared, and by this point, we weren't that hungry. We ordered the Whiskey burger, which sounded good, but wasn't. It sounds *amazing*, but all you can taste is BBQ sauce. Now, i love BBQ sauce, and i've tried most brands on the market and even make my own, but whatever they are using is pretty much just straight sugar. Absolutely overpowering, which is a shame because it *should* be a legit burger. They also have wings on the menu, though at $2/wing, it's a little ridiculous. And they come out on a plate, just kinda thrown on there without much thought, and no side. For that price, there needs to be more effort. Some of the pastas looked good from a distance, but can't speak to the flavor. Maybe they should be an italian restaurant?
Lastly, they charge a 3.5% surcharge on the post-tax amount to pay with a credit card. For the prices they charge, it's basically a guarantee people will be paying with a card. It's long been considered bad practice to make people pay to pay you, but it's also worth considering 3.5% is more than credit card companies typically charge, including Amex, so they're making profit on this charge. I'd say build it in if you actually need to, but the prices are already too high. Just don't have it, that would be better.
This place honestly needs work, and it starts with figuring out what they want to be. Bar? Restaurant? Other? If they want to be an average bar, they're fine. But it seems they're trying to be a trendy restaurant, and they currently fall short. Reduce the menu to focus on only serving top-notch offerings; anything average or worse needs to go. Audubon doesn't have many options, and that has driven a lot of traffic here, but people are eventually going to get tired of the overpriced sugar drinks and only-adequate food once the "newness" wears off. People can get top-quality drinks or trendy food in Phoenixville/Collegeville/KoP, for cheaper. Currently, they don't live up to the hype.