GERTIE — Restaurant in New York

I am very sad to write this review. As a lover of well made Jewish food, I was very much looking forward to our visit. Unfortunately, the food was greatly disappointing. The latkes, first & foremost, were fried, large, heavy meatball sized rounds of shredded potatoes. Golden on the outside (at least), but grey, half cooked & greasy on the inside. The classic latke needs no reinvention. It is a masterpiece of crispy & delicate simplicity. I’m not sure if this is a fusion latke or what, but honestly, is insulting to Jewish food everywhere in its current state. Sometimes, to excel at something glorious, one needs to go back to basics and simply do that on a stellar level. The corned beef hash was grilled German potato salad & corned beef. Why? I agree with a Jewish diner or deli offering a great potato salad or two. Again, a well made corned beef hash doesn’t need to be reinvented in such a way. Even tater tots or baby potatoes with corned beef would have been better than this. The grain bowl was a mashup of mushroom barley soup like mixture & greens. It could’ve been vibrant & alive, but was soupy & grey. Jewish food makes one feel like they’ve come home, like a big hug from mom and a warm welcome. This food made me feel sad & alienated from old Jewish culinary classics. Although the service was certainly friendly, in our group’s opinion, food was way off the mark. Upsides: salmon salad on a bagel was good, bagel & cream cheese decent, breakfast sandwich fine, bialy with cream cheese was good, coffee was fine.Care should be taken with food preparers being on their cell phone & handwashing before returning to food prep. This was a...

Delicous food, good vibes, horrendous service. Went today for lunch, there were 4 tables filled when we arrived, we requested seating at the bar counter—were told no—and directed to a 2 top.

We sat down and proceeded to wait 15 minutes for someone to being us water and acknowledge we were there. Meanwhile, they continued to seat everyone who walked in, ultimately filling the restaurant (AND OPENING THE BAR TOP) before even water arrived on our table (it would have been nice to be reseated where we had requested at this point, given nothing had happened...but that would have required someone paying attention.

It took another 10 minutes from the time someone brought water, for them to come take our order, Meanwhile, the chefs/kitchen were standing around with no orders in, while there were 8+ tables all waiting to put in an order. Literally made zero sense.

Later, when we were finished eating, the serving staff were having a coffee klatch behind the register, and then again at the prep station near the kitchen. I made eye contact, waved briefly, and later got up and walked across the restaurant to ask for a check and a box. When I checked the time, it'd been another 15+ minutes from the time we finished eating to the time I finally secured the check.

IDK what the deal was today, but I'm definitely done patronizing this place. It's not the first time service was this bad. And while the food is fine, it's not worth the hassle.

(For management: the person running our section was a young, short haired blonde. They clearly have no business running FoH at a restaurant. Zero pacing, strategy, or...

I came here for brunch a few days after it opened. It has a lot of potential but they seemed to still be working out some kinks and the hostess just seemed confused the whole time.

The whole ordering, seating etc system was very unclear, and we had to stand around for about 5 minutes before someone explained it to us. Given the unconventional system I think they should add some signage about it.

The hostess told us we could wait ~40 minutes for a table or sit at the bar. She assured us there were lots of seats at the bar so we went with that. However when we walked over there were no seats at the bar.... There were a couple at an awkwardly low table (coffee table height) next to the bar though, so we sat there and put in an order at the bar.

10 minutes later hostess comes over and asks if we are comfortable and says a table has opened up and offered we could sit there. However once she realized we had already ordered at the bar she said never mind, we needed to stay by the bar.

Overall I found the whole experience frustrating. We agreed to bar seats thinking we would actually be able to sit at the bar, and then resigned ourselves to the low table because we thought the wait for a real table would be way longer...

Anyway, onto the food. I got a breakfast sandwich and it was quite good. The food took 30+ minutes to come out though which I found surprising considering the menu is so small.

I would go back and try it again now that they have been at it for a weeks. Probably runs more...