Parkside Station — Restaurant in Manhattan

I want to preface this review by saying this place seems to have a ton of potential and I do not mean to squander its future. That being said I want to give my honest feedback. I’ve been to Parkside Station two times now.

Overall, I hope this long-winded account of my experiences reaches the right people and helps Parkside turns into the place everyone wants it to be.

1st Occasion: Impromptu dinner with my wife. Weekday, ~6:00 PM, April 2024

Pros Unique location across from City Park, perfect for a post City Park drink or meal. Seemingly upscale on the surface. Low riff raff. Friendly staff upon arrival. Recently renovated restaurant with a mid-century modern/vintage diner atmosphere. Phenomenal coffee, from Paramour. I had two cups.

Cons High wait times. Restaurant was at ~30% capacity and the wait staff seemed slow/inexperienced. Servers were quick to ask what we wanted to order before we had any time to look at the menu. After significant delay, they needed to be reminded that we hadn’t ordered yet or received our water/coffee. We also had to flag the server for a coffee refill and the check.

High cost, small portions. We ordered the $13 Pickle Plate appetizer which was lackluster and small. It consisted of a few clusters of pickled veggies and took too long to arrive. Also, the dinner we ordered ($18 Roasted Chicken & Gnudi) was fairly bland and portioned for someone who had previously eaten a filling appetizer.

Finally, the impressively bad cake. We ordered the “Big Cake” which is labeled to be enough for two. Two bites and my stomach wasn’t sure what was happening. As a prior fat kid and cake eating pro, this was a new experience. After almost bending the fork because of the density and eating my bites, I felt like I had swallowed a stick of butter. It cut like a bullet proof rice crispy covered in hardened white chocolate. We left most of the slice on the table.

Overall, my wife and I agreed this was a new place and hoped the staff would turn it around with more time and experience.

2nd Occasion: Drinks on the patio. ~9:00 PM, May 2024.

Pros. Lots of space and quiet.

Cons. After sitting outside for 10-15 minutes, we had to go inside to ask if there were outdoor servers. We were greeted by 3-5 staff sitting around the inside bar and were told we’d get service outdoors. After the initial round we ordered, we were quickly asked “is this together or separate?” and then given checks. We knew they closed at midnight so we were confused. After paying, we asked each other “Did we just get cut off after one drink?”

Turns out they close the patio at 10:00 PM. If we had been told that we had the option to move inside because of patio closure, our group of 7 would have gladly obliged. It was awkward and we felt pushed out, so we left and went elsewhere. Drinks were average and probably fine, but were soured by the service.

Overall low-hanging fruit improvements:

Develop your servers or hire experienced ones Create an enhanced patio experience. Include festive or trendy lighting. Add more options for yard games other than yard golf (cornhole, pong, bocce, spike ball, etc.) Any type of music outside would be better than nothing, preferably live for a short period of time Increase marketing efforts/promotions towards those looking for pre-midnight options outside aggieville.

There is so much potential here, I’d hate to see this flop and get turned into a chain restaurant. Looking forward to the...

I am not a person to normally leave reviews but this was so disappointing, I can’t not write about it. I was very excited to try this place because Manhattan could really use some more nice places to get dinner. However, I was incredibly disappointed with the food and drinks. The pickle platter was good and the mussels tasted good but multiple mussels did not have their beards removed and were covered in moss. I don’t know if they were missed or the cook was just too lazy to clean them. The bread was incredibly mediocre and was no better than a store-bough loaf of bread. For mains, my salmon was very much undercooked and both it and the couscous were not seasoned whatsoever. I will say that the curry sauce around the dish was very good though but I shouldn’t have to completely rely on a little sauce around the dish to flavor everything. My husband got the burger because it looked amazing. However, I have never seen him more dissatisfied. Both him and other people who have gotten the burger all concurred that the lack of seasoning and flavor completely ruined the meal. He also got a side of the mushrooms which ended tasting and looking like a bowl of unseasoned canned cream of mushroom. The drinks unfortunately, were also very watery as well. Our waiter was very nice however, their breath smelt rather pungent especially since they had to get close to hear because of how loud it was which didn’t exactly help us eating our food. The bakery items were amazing but overall, the actual dinner food was mediocre at best especially for the price. The place has been beautifully remodeled but the acoustics are terrible especially for the amount of people crammed in there. People practically have to shout to even talk with the people directly across from them when it is busy. I was really hoping this place was going to be great but I don’t think we will be returned unless it is for the...

Our experience at this restaurant has been disappointing! Our first visit was on a Tuesday over lunch which we learned is when their kitchen is closed. I realize they have items at the counter but wanted to try the menu items that they offered.

The next time, my husband and I went to the hostess stand to be seated. We were told that we would be put on the waitlist and the wait would be an hour. The restaurant was empty at that point and so we were confused as to why we couldn't be seated then but went elsewhere to have a drink then planned to come back for dinner. Right as we had parked to return to the restaurant, I got a text saying we were removed from the waitlist after waiting an hour! So, I called and spoke with someone at the restaurant who said that they couldn't accommodate us and shouldn't have put us on the waitlist at all so, we'd waited an hour for nothing. I said, "so we just waited an hour to be taken off of the waitlist?" and got the response of "yea, we shouldn't have added you to the waitlist, sorry".

Finally, this morning, we tried to order take-out over the phone. When I called, they said their kitchen was too busy to take take-out orders and that we could only order in the restaurant. My husband went to the restaurant and was told that they were ONLY serving the customers who were seated. Most tables were full at this point but it definitely wasn't packed.

All of this to say, I find it hard to believe we've struck out three times. I really want to like this place and support a new restaurant in our community but our experience has been...