Sarabeth's Upper West Side — Restaurant in New York

A disastrous Sunday brunch. We were a group of 3 girls (in our 30’s) with my friend's small puggle asking for outdoor seating around 2pm. Hostess (who mentions she was new and needs to ask a manager if having a dog around was okay) almost regretfully says the wait was for 30 minutes and makes a point to ensure my friend’s dog was leashed so it stays outside the dining area barrier- yes okay fine.. were they always so dog-friendly?- so she takes my name and we decide we can wait but in the meantime, we walk around the block with the dog and come back 20 minutes later for our table that would soon be ready in another 10. When we return we wait for a few min and I ask the hostess again for a sign of update on our table. She says there are still currently no outdoor table for 3 “but if a table becomes available you can just take it,” seemingly exasperated. Great! So we wait some more and we notice 2 tables-for-2 were free, just not connected to each other. Fine, we just had to wait for one table adjacent to a free table to clear and we'd be golden. So we ask if they can be nice enough to give us some mimosas while we stand and wait. Nope, "friendly" waitress says policy doesn't allow for them to serve us if we're not seated. Okay. Pause.. so how about if my friend with her dog sits on one outdoor available table and me and other girlfriend sit anywhere like inside (which has more than like 6 free tables, not crowded at all). Surprise surprise- "No, we have a policy," (yet again), "that once we seat you in a particular table blah blah blah, legalese etc, (moving verboten). “Do you have a policy against serving customers also?”

Wow! it's incomprehensible how disagreeable and off-putting they were! At this point it’s been a whole hour. The very people working in the food service industry who are supposed to value their customers and treat them with attentive service have completely given us the middle finger. Will not return...

As a lifelong upper west sider, I’m not quite sure what just transpired at Sarabeth’s. I put my name down with my wife, 4-year old, and parents in-law for a breakfast table. A rude hostess named Emma told us it would be a 40 min wait. No problem. We went to Park to kill some time and returned 40 min later to check on the status of our table. Emma informed us that it would be another hour. I inquired how this was possible and she said rudely and haughtily, “no guarantee of a table for walk-ins”… and the strange part, she said this with a tone and a look as if she enjoyed saying it. No apology and no attempt to rectify the situation. Not sure waiting another hour was a solution either, especially given that she had already guided my family and I to wait an hour for a table to begin with. I pointed out several empty tables inside the restaurant and asked politely if perhaps they might be combined to accommodate 4 adults and 1 child. One of the waitresses who overheard the conversation said “of course, no problem!”, but with the rudest response, Emma interjected, “we can’t help you”… again with that look of satisfaction… Frankly, as a lifelong upper west sider, I’m fairly certain that I have never encountered such a rude, abrupt, unhelpful, and snotty attitude. Quite sure I will never be returning to Sarabeth’s, which is unfortunate because I’ve been going there for several years. To the management, you might want to consider moving Emma to a different non-customer facing position… or at the very least have a conversation with her and/or send her to train/apprentice at other local...

The food is good. Don't get me wrong. But it's significantly overpriced. If I'm paying $22 for pancakes, I expect them to be both the greatest pancakes ever in the history in the world, AND a pretty decent sized portion.

This was not the case. The pancakes tasted about as good (maybe even slightly worse) than pancakes I'd make in my own kitchen. I think if someone handed me IHOP pancakes instead of Sarabeth pancakes, I wouldn't be upset about it. And for $22 at IHOP, I can probably get six eggs, 10 pieces of toast, and three pounds of bacon along with my stack of pancakes.

The Buttermilk chicken sandwich was DELICIOUS. But again, it was a fairly small sandwich and the fries it came with were fine. They weren't bad or anything, but nothing special. Definitely not worth $22. Especially when down the street at Jacob's Pickles for $17 I can get about triple the amount of chicken (that tastes just as good), plus biscuits, plus a side.

The food and service were good enough where at normal prices, I'd probably return often. But their prices just don't justify what you get for it. I live in NYC so I am used to inflated prices. But Sarabeth's is a bit overkill. I likely won't return unless I stumble into a duffle bag of money that I need to spend.

And if you want to spend a lot of money for brunch and have it worth your while, go to Maison Pickle. Food is delicious, portions are huge, and it's cheaper...