Pergola — Restaurant in New York

Pull up a chair kids. Let me tell you about the time I saw Wendy Williams dining at Pergola...

So I was out with a friend of mine visiting from Europe. We went to another outdoor venue down the street, in the hopes that she would be allowed to smoke (listings online reported it as such). Unfortunately, that information was outdated. Fortunately, the hostess recommended Pergola immediately. At the very least, my companion would get to smoke some Hookah. I hoped for food or drinks to pass the time. Personally, I don't smoke anything so take my points of view with a grain of salt.

I had the wings which were pretty much perfect. If I wasn't so full from brunch earlier I would've tried to sample some of the other menu items. From everything I could tell, their Hookah set ups and workflow was refined to clockwork (e.g. changing of coals constantly and consistently). My companion had prosecco pretty much all night. All she had to do to get another was put a single finger in the air and our waitress was on it! She reported satisfaction with her hookah choice, the price for which was $30.oo.

The music started off a little shaky. Granted it was a Sunday night but still there were some moments of bad mixing. That seemed to get resolved by nightfall, at which point the music leveled up to amazing. I heard Hip-Hop, Dancehall, Reggaeton, Dembow, Afro Beats, Salsa, Arabic, Rai music etc. It was really an awesome mix, as was the crowd (Eastern Europeans juxtaposed to Western Europeans rubbing elbows with Americans of all flavors). People actually got up to dance on the second floor (where we were seated) even though the vibe was more of a loungy one. Wendy Williams popped in for dinner after a while. I was a little bit shocked at that but after a little google research, it seems that she goes here from time to time.

So, all good but for a few things: First, their bathroom situation needs serious help. One toilet was out of order EARLY in the evening. There was a room with two stalls for gents that was so tight that the door would hit the man doing his business closest to the exit. My companion said that the women's restroom was a mess. It seems they need to update and expand their facilities in this area.

Secondly, with such a trendy looking place I would've expected a little bit better dress code management (You can tell me if I'm being too "Bougie"). It was a Sunday so maybe they were more lax?

I'll pull my review up here. My companion absolutely LOVED the place but I wasn't completely sold. We're going to come back because she loved it so much. Maybe we'll check it out on a Friday or Saturday night when things are going 100 miles an hour. I'll come back and update this review then.

Bottom Line: Go on a Sunday if you want to freely kill eight hours. They'll probably leave you to your own devices. Have the food and bubbly but don't have too much... Those bathrooms are...

Came here a couple of times for Hookah and food because this was closer to work. Tonight was a negative experience. Won’t come back here again.

We made reservation, was sat on a high up table with nowhere to place bag except the floor, asked the waitress to switch where we were seated in a corner that stinks + the waitress that was pouring water in our cups served 1/3 of the liquid to the table and just walked away without wiping. Asked to move again - back to the original table given it was too much of a stinky seat (this wasn’t pergola’s fault I should be honest, was neighbour customers body odor.) Ordered food and hookah, the server took away a plate without even asking if we were done with it. At this point we were still going to tip 20% despite there were already turn offs. End of the night - both friend and I didn’t have card or cash on us but this place claimed to not accept Apple Pay because owner said so. I asked how they’d like to proceed because it was 8pm and if we had the card to “go to an ATM to withdraw cash” we obviously would have been able to pay with said card (yes it was suggested by the waitress after we told them none of us had a card on us), the manager agreed to do apply pay, but “only this once”.

After leaving 20% tips for all the trouble, we got up and realised one of our hat was missing. Asked the waitress to check on the previous table as we didn’t want to disturb other guests who are currently sitting there, the answer was a very unbothered“sorry baby”. We went up to the guests ourselves politely, they had actually picked it up and left it on a spare chair of their table, waiting for the previous owner to come back.

Our questions to the waitress really were the following - would you “sorry baby” customers if we asked about the hat before the tipping? And also - Was politely asking the current customers who sat on our previous table a simple question of whether they have seen a hat left around the table such a hard task to do?

Bad vibes.

Mediocre food + ok hookah.

Haven’t decided if I want to call the bank to dispute tip. Seems worth a try. Wasn’t too huge of a tip but the server doesn’t even deserve that.

Would not come back. NYC has other hookah places with more “correctly...

I've been here before and typically service is decent. However, today it was below average and for no reason I can pinpoint. I was there from 3:30pm on a Friday, with not much going on and the drink order took a while, the food took about 30 mins which wasn't a big deal in the moment. However, after finally getting the food, and it took another 20 mins before our server came to check on us. We ordered another round of drinks which came pretty quickly however our hookah needed new coals and after signalling to two different employees it still took another 20 mins before they came. Even at this point, I really didn't have a huge issue with anything stated so far..was Just trying to enjoy my afternoon. It's now about 4:45pm, and out waitress who has been MIA was no where to be found... After trying to make eye contact with the other staff I finally saw her and flagged her down.. explained that we wanted another round of drinks. She mentioned that her shift has ended and she transferred our tab to someone else.. ok now I understand this happens often at bars etc so that's fine, however I've never been to an establishment where your waitress doesn't give you the heads up that their shift is changing and or the new waitress doesn't come over to indicate they will be now serving you and to find out if you need anything else. I literally had to flag her down after waiting for some time for some attention, then after the new waitress comes over... We put in our drink order and she too disappears for another 15mins. Coincidentally a manager comes over to ask if everything is ok, I explained we've been waiting for quite some time for a few drinks and acknowledged the delay went and brought our drinks. I'm still not done... One of the drinks had a bug in it... Like a fly of some sort... Yuck. We brought this to their attention, and while the manager removed it from our bill the while experience left alot to be desired and based on this I would not...