Beast & Butterflies Times Square — Restaurant in New York

I have to make an unfortunate review. I came to this bar as it is highly rated and one of the best rooftop bars, as reviews say. The atmosphere is great, but it ended there shortly for me.

Upon arrival, there was poor signage for the bar besides to walk up to the bar it's self. We wanted a table and to the right of the bar, further, there was a small sign to be seated. I honestly didn't see it at first and stood around awkwardly, not knowing where to place myself. I'm sure if you had a large party that it would make for confusion. The host didn't pop for for about 5 minutes. So I didn't even know if there was a host and almost sat myself.

At the table, we were greeted with waters and asked immediately if we wanted drinks. We asked our server about our food allergy regarding peanuts. The server, with a thick accent, immediately wiped his smile off and made it feel like it was a nuisance. Then, he proceeded to go to the next table over with the most orchestrated personality and smile I have seen. Honestly, despicable behavior.

We ask specifically "does your kitchen use any peanuts, peanut oils or sauces." He replies with "we can accommodate your allergy, let me know what you want." We try to explain that we need to know if there are peanuts in the kitchen in general. The allergy is severe, and we don't risk cross contact SURFACE contamination.

So he goes to the kitchen and comes back 10 minutes later saying "You can only eat these two."

We still don't know if the kitchen handles peanuts, peanut oils, or sauces. It is rare for a server to not understand the information we need, but at this point, it's confusing and without wanting to be rude, despite the server being rude, we decide to leave. Upon seeing us leave the server was the most passive-aggressive yet. I'm glad we didn't risk our...

The view was the only good part about the experience. My husband and I arrived. The man at the entrance split groups of people up based on hotel guests and non hotel guests. Us non hotel guests were sent without any help to an elevator on the left side of the room. No explanation of which button to press, no guidance… luckily Someone in the elevator knew which button to press as they had been here years ago. We got out into some hallway that doesn’t tell you in the slightest where to go. The only signs say ‘Lobby’ and ‘Street level’ we went down a hallway not really having a clue where we were going and luckily ended up in the bar. When we arrived, no one told us where to sit so we sat ourselves at the railing (the only part I enjoyed about our entire visit here) there was a man we could see serving a table so we waited about 5 minutes to see if he was serving everyone. You guessed it.. he wasn’t. I had to go into the bar to order drinks for my husband and I. The bartender didn’t tell me there was a 15% gratuity automatically included. Glad I noticed on my own. Drinks were subpar. I had the blackberry smash which was good when I didn’t suck up a seed. My husband didn’t like his drink (I think just the ingredients not the actual quality of the drink.) Had a hard time finding our way back out. Tried the guest elevators. No luck as you need a room key. Back tracked our way through the hallway we came in through. Waaaay too messy for a place I want to go for a night cap. I came here hoping to chill out and enjoy a drink with a nice view. The view didn’t disappoint,...

I have been wanting to dine at Beasts and Butterflies for quite a while, but I’m usually with my younger daughters. The doorman, Luis, exuded such positive energy. I expected my experience at the bar/restaurant to be similar. Perhaps there was some profiling that went into the apathetic and wholly indifference attitude of the two servers who “dealt” with me. I’m a single woman, and granted, single woman don’t often tip that well, so perhaps this influenced their attitude. Neither server greeted me or asked how I was doing. The only thing he uttered was “do you want tap water?” I ordered the crab cakes. They were excellent. Neither server bothered to check back. One simply returned with the check; this time, since we were near the end of the transaction, he actually smiled (perhaps trying to salvage his tip). At that point, I was over the egregiously bad experience. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. If you expect a bad tip, treat customers poorly, you’ll probably end up with just that. I left 15 percent of the bill, but in my estimate, he deserved nothing. I noted in the receipt that the tip matches service. I should have tipped the back-of-the-house since the food was great.

For reference, I tipped more than that for a mere Coke last night at PhD rooftop, because they were extremely friendly and welcoming. My order was easy at your restaurant—there were no complications. This shouldn’t have been hands down the worst experience in Ny. This was at 9 tonight,...