Skyline bar — Restaurant in Riga

We visited at around three in the afternoon on Friday for late lunch. The elevator to the bar is a bit hidden from the main entrance, but just look for signs. Mind you the elevator ride is scenic, so if you feel queasy at heights, better keep your eyes on the door.

The view of course was amazing, as Riga is quite flat and you can see far. There was so much to see!

Food: Suprisingly the menu was Asian themed. We ordered pork with noodles and vegetarian spring rolls for lunch. Our food arrived quickly though there were a lot of customers. The portion size is excellent lunch-wise and they were nicely presented. The pork was tasty and tender and the spring rolls were nice and juicy but crunchy.

Drinks: We ordered water and cocktails. The cocktails were nicely presented and tasted good but left us wondering where the alcohol was, as I get easily tipsy and felt nothing.

Dessert: We ordered 'stages of chocolates' and loved it! Our server suggested we share one but we were greedy and wanted our own portions. We couldn't finish! Should have taken that advise.

Atmosphere: Clean, modern, young. At the time we visited, there was melodic house music playing. Loved it.

Prices: surprisingly affordable for a hotel bar, considering the good portions, the views and the location.

Service: The staff spoke very good English and they were polite and cheery. They generally appeared to enjoy their workday. They were also very attentive, like asking if we were too cold, making sure we were happy etc. Service is charged in the check but we just had to tip extra because the staff's good day affected us and we left in excellent spirits!

Bonus: The restroom near the elevator is worth checking out! We only saw the ladies' restroom so can't promise the gents get treated with...

I have been visiting this establishment for over 5 years now, and today might have been my last visit. I regularly bring clients and family here for drinks and cocktails. Due to the bars irregularly high turnover rate i increasingly encounter more and more unprofessional and unhosbitable staff. Today was the final breaking point. While entertaining clients and going over business arrangements I was interrupted in order to ask for our documents by the waitress. No worries all apart of buisness (even though half my guests had fully grown beards). After showing our documents the waitress was satisfied, except the new manager barged into our interaction and lacked the decency to remember the regulars instructed me to show a physical form of identification. I explained I have a digital passport inside my phone (excepted for international flights travel and signing documents). I explained I would have to go walk 10 minutes to my parked car to retrieve my physical passport even tho I have a internationally excepted form of ID on my phone. The manger said he doesn't care and in front of my clients I was embarrassingly forced to leave for 20+ minutes. If you do not know how a digital ID looks like don't work as the manager at a high end...

The quality of the cocktails is still excellent. The views can't be taken away and if you have not been to this place, they alone are worth coming for.

However this place is missing one key element - service. It used to have it 5 to 8 years ago, when the waitresses would eagerly scan the floor for paying customers to take orders, now you have to wait even at the bar, just to be acknowledged. During my last visit I witnessed the barman bark something along the lines of "mate! stop complaining..." at a group of customers for jokingly discussing the 10min + delay in getting served between themselves. There were 4 people behind the bar, all were looking down/sideways or anywhere else but the 20 to 30 people standing next to the bar to place an order. I would recommend for the management to retrain the staff on customer service standards and reset the expectations.

Like many good businesses, the Skyline bar has become complacent in relying on the views and a steady stream of tourists to sell cocktails. The customer base is over 90% tourist skewed to middle aged family's with children and pensioners.

After patronising this bar for close to 10 years on my visits to Latvia, I don't think I...