The Cellar Restaurant and Prohibition Bar — Restaurant in Covington

Food 2.5/5 Drinks: 1/5 Service: 3/5 Overall: 2.5/5 When: Wednesday 17 August (5 – 7:30 pm) Who: party of 6 (4 adults, 2 children (5 and 12) Total cost: $306.21 (including a 20% mandatory gratuity) Waitress: Lia I did speak directly with one of the owners, James, before posting this review. We entered The Cellar around 5 pm and were created by the waitstaff who sent up a table for the 6 for us, we were given menus but not asked if we have ever been in before nor given an overview of the menu or various drink options. Drinks: We ordered a round of bar drinks, Old Fashioned (smoked), 2 French 75s, and Jameson and ginger. The Old Fashioned (smoke) at $17 is advertised as the Cellar Private barrel Blue Note Bourbon, I was for sure not served this (receipt shows Jim beam 8 Star) and at best the drink's volume was 1 maybe 1.5 ounces (a photo on The Cellars FB shows the drink being closure to 3-4 oz). Additionally, we were not offered water, customary, in my opinion, when ordering bar drinks. The Jameson and ginger also tasted watered down. One guest did request water but had to ask for the water to be refilled. Service: Lia was very nice and kept us updated on the status of the food. However, the bartender, there were 2, was very slow and one of the male bartenders was eating at the bar. Food main course: The shrimp and grits were very spicy, which is not an issue other than the menu makes no mention of this, and one of the children(12-year-old) ordered this dish. Would have been nice if he had known of the heat level. The grits were a bit watery, but the overall flavor was nice. The mushroom ravioli was very nice, with great flavor with some truffle flavor. The burgers were also very nice. Desert: we ordered, and then about 15 mins later were told they were out of 2 items we ordered were not in stock and the peanut butter pie was frozen and needed the thaw, when the dessert finally arrived only one peanut butter pie was brought out, and we were charged for 2. Checking out: we had to go up to the bar to pay, after 2 ½ hours we were more than ready to go, at check-out Lia was visibly upset and told the bartender and POS system guy that no one told her all the stuff they were out of. Additionally, at check out, I was told that gratitude was added to the check because we were a party of 6, which was not stated on the menu as policy! I also had to ask for an itemized receipt because the receipt I was given to sign had a place for a tip, so had I not known of the mandatory gratuity I would have tipped in addition. Overall: great concept, very cool location and feel to the place; but, needs...

Sat ourselves like the sign said to, waited 20 minutes for our drink order to be taken. Waited another 10 minutes to receive my glass of wine but husband never received his sweet tea. About 45 minutes into sitting there we received our boudine ball appetizer and at that point asked the person who brought the food if he could get his drink. Waitress kept telling us it was her first night so I am not sure why she was alone and not being trained. An hour after being there we were finally able to order - I got sirloin and my husband got the NY strip.... Mine was okay, the seasoning was a bit odd but overall okayish. My husbands NY strip was inedible. It had almost an inch thick of fat on one side and huge tendons running through it and since it was so rare he couldn't even cut through the tendons to get a single bite of food. He informed the waitress (once she finally came back to the table) that his food was inedible and since I was already half done eating he didn't want anything else. She came back 10 minutes later (after leaving his food in front of him so he can be teased by it) and asked if we wanted the check and acted like she did us such a huge favor by taking his meal off the ticket. She charged full price for the half price wine so after he finally got tired of waiting he went to the bar to have it fixed and to pay and as soon as he signed the ticket she grabbed it from his hand and immediately looked to see what he tipped her. He tipped her out of courtesy since she brought us one thing - another lady brought us literally everything else. But 2 hours there for 1 edible meal really sucks. It was our second time being there... the first time had a similar experience so probably won't go back a third. In all I really think this is a management issue... the waitress was set up to fail so I realize it is not her fault for not being properly trained and given all the tools to be good at her job. I did reach out to management via email and never heard anything back. I heard back! All they did was offer alot of excuses as to why the service was bad... basically said they were under staffed and couldn't get shifts covered. Still doesn't explain the quality of the food though. I don't think any amount of cooking could have made that NY strip enjoyable so again, management needs to do better. Purchase better quality cuts of steak and if you're so understaffed you can't handle a 'busy' Wednesday (we were 1 of 6 tables and most were just 2 people) then maybe close for the night and lose income for 1 night rather future business due to lack of service and...

I had made reservations for 10 the night before because I had family members in town for a funeral and wanted to take them to what I had thought was a nice restaurant with good food. We were seated immediately. After that, service was kind of slow. The drinks were really slow coming out and we were never offered refills the rest of the night. We ordered the boudin balls for an appetizer and they tasted like dressing, as in Thanksgiving dressing. They brought out complimentary cheese sticks, our salads, then our entrees. The ribeye and sirloin steaks were tender and cooked to perfection but no flavor, at all. Most of everyone's steak residue went into a to-go plate for one of the party's dogs. There was quite a bit with almost an entire sirloin. The garlic mashed potatoes were barely warm and bland, with no seasoning but garlic. They ran out of green beans. One member of my family has dementia and because her garlic potatoes were cold and tasteless she refused to eat them and her salmon patties (which came in a to-go box), didn't get to the table until just before we left, she didn't eat. I had informed my family that I was picking up the tab but they must take care of the tip. Sadly, only two placed tip money on the table and I had to go back to the tab and add enough to give the waitress a halfway decent tip. It was a bad night. The waitress did take pictures for us...