Prime Steak House — Restaurant in City of Syracuse

We had dinner at Prime this past Saturday night. My daughter was graduating from Syracuse and we wanted to take her to the best restaurant in town. A great dining experience requires two things. Great food and great service. As much as the food was delicious the service was absolutely horrible. Another family had warned us as they had gone the previous night and it took two hours to get their dinner. I had thought this was an isolated incident as the restaurant had lost their reservation.

The evening started out great. We were seated at 8AM, we ordered drinks and they brought fresh baked breads right out of the oven. We placed our order for appetizers at 8:30AM and they were served promptly. The lobster bisque was delicious with chucks of lobster and my daughter's tuna tartar was excellent. Everything was going beautifully. Then things fell apart.

It wasn't until almost 10PM that our dinner was finally served. At no point did the staff, manager or owner come to our table to explain the delay or apologize for the slow service. I am sorry, I would expect a restaurant of this caliber to know how to handle these situations and keep their guests informed.

We ordered our steak medium rare and it came out raw. They had pre-sliced the steak which is great but they could have clearly seen that the steak was raw. Seems the kitchen wasn't even checking food before they went out to the table. We immediately sent it back to the kitchen and a few minutes later it came back exactly the same, raw. Exhausted by the wait and the failure to cook the steak properly, we decided to eat the raw steak.

Clearly our experience wasn't an isolated incident as it happened the night before and other tables in the restaurant were complaining about the wait. It is all about managing expectations in my mind. There were so many things the restaurant could have done to minimize our frustrations yet they chose to do nothing.

If you want great food AND great service, go to Francesca's. If you have Chris as your waiter, you won't be...

The down low on this review is: Not worth the cost. I was very excited to eat at this place as it has a local reputation as a “real steakhouse” but walked away feeling like I should have gone to a chain steak location as I feel I would have gotten more bang for my buck. Immediately upon arriving I was told that the “28 day aged beef” is actually “wet aged” not “Dry Aged”. I feel that’s a bit of a detractor right there, especially since you will be dropping $60-$70 on a steak easy. Also, their wine list was a bit light and all of the wines available by the glass were only midshelf quality (think Minage a Tois) and my wife actually asked for Moscato and they said, “they were all out”. I don’t know how that happens, nor how someone wasn’t sent to a local place to get a bottle (if we are paying $150 + for a meal one would think they would make the effort). They do not seem to be very flexible with the menu, when asked if the half lobster tail could be swapped out for shrimp on the surf & turf we were told all shrimp was already cooked and chilled for the shrimp cocktail, which leads me to believe they are just buying cooked shrimp to begin with, and when we got the Shrimp and Crab cocktail the Crab tasted canned. Overall the food tasted good, but there was a long wait, even though the place was not full, and even though the meat was good, it wasn’t on par with the price, and the sides were lacking in TLC (overcooked risotto, undercooked Brussel spouts). Homemade bread was amazing BTW, and staff was very friendly, as was the process of getting a reservation. It’s not a bad restaurant, and it wasnt an un-enjoyable meal but when you are looking at going to a place where you will be dishing out a hundred bucks per person for a meal, one would think that you would be walking out, afterword thinking anything other than “I should have gone to Longhorn” which was exactly what I...

the steak is quite excellent. five stars.

i was mildly confused when our server asked us if we wanted anything to drink (wine) three times. i'm glad she checked because some people may feel anxious to ask for alcohol and giving them the opportunity to order some may help. while that may be the case for others, it is definitely not what we needed. i'm a recovering alcoholic and underage, and the other person (out of three) needed to drive. one person at our table ordered one glass of wine before we ordered appetizers. perhaps she was trying to check on him first and then would double check with us too. i don't hold anything against the server, in fact i wouldn't know how to go about the situation myself if i was a server or manager. not the slightest clue. it's a strange predicament and i don't blame anyone for how it was handled.

the service was excellent. i appreciate how patient our server was, given the energy at the table. she was great with showing us the menu options and had an impressive knowledge of wine. if i had money to pitch in for the tip, i would have doubled it. she deserved it.

the atmosphere is good. i really appreciated the interior of that building and i loved that the restaurant was in the basement. i was mildly uncomfortable with the atmosphere several times. i grew up in some hardcore poverty, and i barely knew how to hold myself many times. i tried to remember how the kids stood and sat when they were being "proper" in the privileged public school i went to. i kept thinking about how different it was to be able to be there, compared to how i lived when i was homeless.

good restaurant. if you can afford it, try the NY...