Bluestone Lane Tribeca Café — Restaurant in New York

I live in the neighborhood. Was hoping this could be a reliable outpost to meet friends for coffee/lunch. I've tried out the restaurant 5+ times, usually for meetings, hoping that it would improve in the months after opening, but Bluestone in Tribeca fails on so many levels.

First, the hours are ridiculous. It closes at 4pm, which makes no sense in a neighborhood as busy as this one is. And as that time approaches, the staff is already making sure that people feel uncomfortable, so that diners will leave in advance of closing time.

Perhaps management could put less pressure on the wait staff to clear people out, or pay them overtime, or an extra hour, so that they would be incentivized to create a welcoming vibe.... or better yet, extend hours so that the place can be a reliable destination for folks to recommend to others for lunches, meetings, get togethers, etc. At the moment, the hours make it a joke.

If you make the mistake of lingering a few minutes longer after you've been warned of the impending closing, you'll get a staff member in your face, reminding you that they're closing, making sure that you feel unwelcome. This is just one of the "transgressions" that will get you attitude at this place. Ridiculous.

Second, You must select and order your food via app (create a login) and then pay for the food and gratuity in advance. (If you don't have a smartphone, then I can't imagine how you would pay and order.)

So, you're essentially doing the work that a server would usually do. When you order your food yourself (really you get basically the same service at McDonalds, and FASTER, and more reliably) you're prompted to submit an 18% or more gratuity for the favor of having to create an account, evaluate the menu, enter your credit card info and contact info, etc. You will be lucky if anyone asks you if you need anything during your meal. If your service is terrible (which it often is) then you're out of luck.

I'm happy to pay 20-25% or more for great service, but for surly/indifferent/nonexistent/sloppy service, no thank you.

If you sit on the upper level, you'll be treated to the expediter shouting the orders to the cooks. The kitchen doesn't at all look comfortable for the kitchen staff, (tiny) nor does the arrangement work for diners who would rather not hear when every order is up, or late to the pass.

The food is not bad. Not good. The drinks all come pre-packaged, xcept the coffee, which can take forever for the staff to make and deliver, depending on who is working that day.

You'd do better to walk a block further to Pain Quotidian...

This space has seemingly, always been cursed. But over the years, it's clear that it's not the location, so much as poorly managed businesses that take root here, that care more about profit, than actually serving diners in a way that makes them want to return. I'll not be returning or recommending this...

Extremely disappointed and embarrassed by our experience at Bluestone Tribeca today.

We asked for a table with our dog and baby and were quickly shown a table and our order taken.

Once our food arrived, a waiter came over and commented that our dog was "clearly not a service dog" and that we had to leave. We never claimed that she was a service dog, we were not asked by the host if she was a service dog. After being accused of lying about our dog, we were given to-go containers for our food and told to leave immediately.

I asked if we could just have 5mins to quickly eat our food and leave as it had just arrived. I was midway through bottle feeding my newborn as well. We were told no and the payment machine was put down in front of us without even showing us the bill.

With half the section staring at us now, my husband quickly put the food in containers and took our dog outside whilst I bundled our baby up. When leaving the cafe the staff watched as I struggled to lift the stroller down the few steps without offering a hand and a fellow diner had to hold the door open for me.

I completely understand if a venue can only have service animals, but we were not told this. The host did not ask and gave us a table. We've eaten at two other Bluestones with our dog without any issues so assumed this was a common policy across all Bluestones. The least the venue could have done is let us quickly finish our meal or at a minimum helped package our food up as a to-go order rather than dump the containers at our table and telling us to leave. You could have acknowledged that your host seated us without checking rather than accuse us and embarrassing us.

Next time I'll stick to Bluestone Battery Park where the staff actually welcomes and pats our dog in...

I had an incredibly disappointing experience at Bluestone Lane in Tribeca. My partner and I stopped by to grab a quick drink to go. We ordered a Bondi Blue Smoothie and an Iced Melbourne Brekky cold brew tea. According to the menu handed to us, the smoothie was $9.80 and the tea was around $4.60.

When we received the bill, the total came to $18.56, which didn’t add up based on the prices we saw. When I questioned the discrepancy, the staff referred me to the manager. The manager initially said they would take care of it but then returned and claimed that the prices on the menu cards were outdated. They insisted on charging us the higher price, even though they had provided us with the incorrect information.

What made it worse was the fact that there was a QR code on the menu folder that could have been scanned to see the updated prices, but no one mentioned it to us. Charging customers a different price than what is displayed without any prior warning is unacceptable and misleading.

To add insult to injury, when the manager finally decided to “take care of it,” they placed 50 cents on the table and walked away without any apology or acknowledgment of the inconvenience. The principle of the matter—charging more than the listed price and failing to inform customers properly—was completely ignored.

This experience left a sour taste, and I won’t...