Elm City Social — Restaurant in New Haven

We were a party of 4 for an 8:30 reservation on Thursday night celebrating a 10 year anniversary and a birthday. We arrived a few minutes prior to our reservation time. On the way to the table the hostess informed us the kitchen closed at 9pm, but said we should have plenty of time. We were aware of the kitchen closing time so we said that was not a problem. Our server, Zhaelynn came over and said the kitchen closed in 10 minutes so we needed to hurry up and order, at this point it was 8:35. The way she reinforced us was extremely cold and rude. It was clear she was not happy that she was sat an additional table that evening. We said we were aware and hurried to select drinks and food items. Our order was in at 8:39. There was a larger party and one two top wrapping up where we were seated. As soon as they left the server began cleaning the area which is fine, however, she was slamming, dragging, and stacking loud metal chairs all around us. It was uncomfortable and definitely did not make us feel welcome. When coming over to the table with plates and drinks our server slammed the plates on the table this happened 2 separate times (the first we thought was an accident). She slammed the drink much so we thought one broke. We had to interrupt her texting on her phone at the pos station to get her attention to order some additional drinks. Two of us said our order and she immediately turned and walked away. We had to stop her to say we still had one person stating their order when she walked away. The food was good, we had a summer salad bowl with salmon, the street cart chicken, skillet shrimp and the little cheeseburgers. All were pretty good but the little cheeseburgers were well done rather than medium as requested. I sought out the manager to provide feedback, and was told that they had 2 large parties that evening and he was not on the floor as much as he would have liked. He said he would discus with the server, but did not while we were there as the stacking and slamming of chairs continued all around us even after I spoke to the manager. We would have shared with the server that mini burgers were well done, but we were not given a chance as she never checked on us or asked how the meals were. We were not offered the dessert menu, rather our server promptly cleared our plates and without hesitation brought the check. She said no rush, but I’ll take the check and close you out when your ready. Not even 3 minutes after she came and grabbed the check which we had not looked at. We had to stop her to let her know there was no payment in the booklet. She stopped and said ok, but I’m leaving-my shift is over so you need to pay and you can hang out if you want. We paid as quickly as possible at that point immediately got up. That is the first time ever we have not left a 20-22% tip anywhere. I am a General Manager of a busy shoreline restaurant, and my husband is a bartender in downtown new haven at a busy restaurant. We understand the industry well. It’s not easy and all too often by the end of a shift staff are spent. However, don’t offer 8:30 reservations if you are going to be so rude and disgruntled that guests make reservations. If you are going to seat people and someone is going to be so downright rude to guests ask the bartender to take the table. We were very disappointed that on our only evening off, celebrating 2 special occasions that this was our experience. The manager didn’t even bother stopping by the table after I sought him out just to simply apologize to the rest of the party. We were not looking for any freebies, just an acknowledgment of our experience. We would not recommend this restaurant to our friends, family, or clientele given the extremely...

We went here for a friend's birthday. Several of us had been here before on the rooftop and enjoyed ourselves. We made a reservation for a group of 12. Arrived, and they had us in a cute little room in the back. We waited 30 minutes for a drink order to be taken, another 30 for the drinks to arrive. They were out of so many drinks and food items, that several in our party had to repeatedly order different things.

The food took forever and several people's orders were just straight up forgotten about. I should mention that there were tons of staff, they were not slammed, and we had multiple staff members screwing around chatting and running out our food so none of them knew who had ordered what they were trying to deliver. The food we did receive was bland and extremely greasy. The Nashville hot chicken sandwich wasn't hot at all, just pools of grease. The mac and cheese legitimately didn't taste like anything at all, it was like something you would get in a dining hall cafeteria. We had to ask multiple times for the missing orders. Our meal was repeatedly interrupted and the person sitting at the end of the table had to GET UP AND LEAVE HER CHAIR WHILE STANDING OFF TO THE SIDE so that staff could get into the storage closet that was behind her seat. WHAT THE ACTUAL UNPROFESSIONAL HELL IS THAT?

We had clarified who was to be on what check, it really should have worked out to about 4 checks total. At the end of the evening, after having to spend 2.5 hours waiting for one round of drinks and one round of food, we finally asked for the checks. After watching our waitress screw around for 20 minutes chatting with other staff members she came over and told us her computer had shut down and she wasn't able to separate our checks. We watched other tables get their checks... So, I gave up and put our nearly $600 check on my card to be sorted out later. Only to realize, the reason she lied about this was to ensure that she still received a 20% tip for completely garbage service.

Don't waste your time. Go literally anywhere else. Ordinary is consistently great (their drinks, service, and food are top notch...

I went on a Tuesday night before a concert at the College Street Music Hall next door. I had a reservation for 4 and was seated promptly, but it went downhill from there with the service.

Our server came over in an acceptable amount of time and was friendly on his initial intro. Did a comprehensive overview of the food and cocktail menu and then said he would be right back to take our drink order.

He came back about 10 minutes later and then we waited another 10 minutes for our drinks, which a runner brought out.

We ordered and waited over a half hour for two entrees, the third entree came out almost 10 minutes later. The fourth order was 10 wings which took the longest. Everyone else was almost done their food by the time the wings came out over 45 minutes after ordering.

The server didn't check in with us during this long wait or apologize. We received a quiet "sorry" when he finally delivered the wings. Dinner for 4 shouldn't be a 2 hour experience at a casual pub.

The food was good for the most part but didn't make up for the poor service. I ordered the Little Cheeseburgers. My wife ordered a pasta dish which was mainly pasta and had very little vegetables in it.

Atmosphere and ambiance were good. I would try this restaurant again maybe for drinks before a show...