Scofflaw — Restaurant in Jefferson Township

2 for the patio service, 5 for the food.

My wife and I have been coming to Scofflaw for a few years now, and shared some truly special moments there. A few days ago, we gave the cocktail patio a shot, and were really disappointed with the service.

Note: It was a busy Friday so, understandable, kind of.

1.) Sat promptly, given water and directed to the menus. Ordered quickly as we already knew what we wanted, and to try and save an extra trip for our waitress. About 15mins in, the two apps were dropped, no drinks. Wife ordered cava, I ordered a Negroni. +15mins for a poured drink and a three ingredient cocktail is wild.

2.) Little to no check-ins. We watched our waitress rush around hurriedly to other tables around us, as we sat there with two empty glasses and two finished apps. Although she had made eye contact and few times, she never took it upon herself to revisit and ask if we needed anything else. Needless to say, we were starting to get a little frustrated.

3.) Two more ordered drinks, another +15mins wait. Not sure how there was such a breakdown with timing, as most of the happy hour cocktails are premixed in taps, and the off menu items we ordered were still just poured cava and a three ingredient cocktail?

4.) No cleared plates between dishes. Since there were no check-ins, we sat there with used plates and the remnants of eaten apps in front of us, for what seemed like a long time. Again, kind of killing our vibe, and adding to our already growing frustration.

Summary: Sit at the bar. Avoid the patio. Even if it's nice.

Note: We observed a four top next to us also wait an excessively long time for their drinks, while we continued to...

Went to Scofflaw for the second time this evening and it remains an excellent experience. Service was fast, polite, and made us aware of a few things we didn't know about things we were ordering so we wouldn't be surprised. Menu remains good while being relatively compact - they do fewer things better and I appreciate that.

We had several cocktails with differing profiles and base liquors and they were all good, definitely in the A class for our fair city. Particularly good was the Bear Necessity which was delightfully well balanced for any palette.

For appetizers we had the fried cauliflower with the lemon pepper sauce and the beet bruschetta. Both were S class and vegetarian as well. For mains we had the Italian Beef Spaetzle and the Eggplant Hoagie, both were A class and off special note was the crispy chickpeas in the hoagie giving it an extra enjoyable texture component. We finished with the cinnamon monkey bread which was so good that I did indeed split it with my date despite initially turning down dessert.

If you're in the neighborhood or looking for somewhere worth a bit of a jaunt for a lovely meal, I'd recommend Scofflaw wholeheartedly. Prices were reasonable, maybe even trending a bit on the inexpensive side for the quality...

We finally went to Scofflaw and we were not disappointed! I am a huge gin fan so we wanted to try this place. We was there early enough and snagged a great comfortable table. The food is small plates, and it was very good. the wife and I started off with the goat cheese and the meat platter which were good Then as an entree I ordered the cheeseburger and the side of fries... that was seriously a great burger! Now the drinks..... I had at least 4 drinks and all of them were awesome! Not all of their drinks have gin which was nice to see however they do have a vast selection of gin. I also tried the Scofflaw gin (house made gin) and that was also excellent... did not have a bad thing while I was there!

The ambiance is pretty chill and the place looks like an old boutique which is pretty cool. They also have an outdoor patio but its very small and it looks like all the tables are on top of each other. Found out the menu changes every quarter so it sounds like this is a place that you need to visit often and enjoy their new menu items!!

On a "sad" note... I wasn't there until midnight so I didn't get to try their chocolate...