Silvana — Restaurant in New York

(SHARING MY OWN REVIEW FROM YELP. GOOGLE DOES NOT REFLECT ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT)

When I finally decided to try Silvana, I was not expecting this place to be completely mismanaged based off the reviews. While the food here is very, VERY good, the service is not, but it is not the servers fault either. This is clearly a management issue.

I arrived this morning for breakfast with my mother. Lovely male waiter told us to sit where we want and we waited a few minutes before he gave us our menus and served us some water. I noticed quickly that this waiter was running food, cleaning tables, making drinks, and closing checks all by himself without a single other worker here, besides a chef that was bringing the food up from the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, the waiter was getting very behind with the growing number of customers, pick up orders, and just overall people trying to leave. At a certain point in our meal, my mother tried to get another latte, to which the waiter informed us of all the drinks ahead of us (about 7-8). It's very disappointing to go to a restaurant and not be able to order an item that I could receive in a timely fashion.

I watched many people come in, sit for 10-15 minutes, and get up and leave after no one came to even take a drink order. There is obviously not enough staff here. This came across as non empathetic and a "it is what it is" attitude. A second, female worker finally came in with glasses on that had absolutely no sense of urgency while this poor waiter was still running around like a chicken with his head cut off.

Now I have written an entire review on the service of this place without touching much on the food, which is just as important.

Like I said, it's disappointing to want to order a drink and be told it would take an unreasonable amount of time. It's also disappointing to order over easy eggs and receive over hard eggs. There were absolutely no yolks which is my favorite part but this place was too busy to even mention it to the waiter so I just took it and ate it. We even ordered extra pita to take home with us which we ended up asking to be removed from the bill because it was taking 20 minutes to receive it. Like I said earlier, the food was very good, but there is no room for criticism or even the ability to correct an order when the service is 30 minutes behind.

Management needs to fix this problem or go in and work a Sunday morning shift for themselves. You cannot tell me that is sustainable (OR SAFE???) for one person. Owners need...

Silvana is a large café, boutique, shawarma and falafel bar offering live music performances on their downstairs stage, where every night you can hear three or four class musical acts and afterward dance the night away to music played by a local DJ.

Talent comes not only from New York City but also from all over the planet. Performances might include a jazz quartet, a conguera from Cuba, a reggae band with a possible (and likely) impromptu jam session following. Silvana is affiliated with Shrine, another, hotter, club farther uptown, and because of that has an abundant choice of great musical acts to show off.

Meanwhile, as a gathering place for eats and drinks, and a place where you should easily be able to meet local residents (like staffer Latifa, pictured) the Sabich Sandwich is representative of wider menu offerings: fried eggplant, hardboiled egg, hummous, tahini, pickles, fluffy chips and greens in a pita. Healthful, conscientious cooking.

Just west of the SW corner of Frederick Douglass Blvd (8th Ave) and 116th Street, the perfect place to begin, or interrupt a walking or bicycle tour of Harlem below 125th Street. There’s a subway stop right on the corner (B/C Trains) and a CitiBike station on the corner at 117th Street.

Across the street is Lolo’s Seafood Shack, a joint that’s made a name for itself over the...

I booked a reservation for eight people for a birthday party. We were totally prepared to order a whole bunch of food and alcohol and stay for a few hours to enjoy whatever live entertainment was happening.

The booker took our reservation with no issues, and we were sat downstairs, and we opened a tab for our drink orders while we looked at the menu.

We’d been there for about 15 minutes when two women came up to our table telling us that a live comedy show was about to start, and that if we wanted to stay seated at our table we’d need to pay a $20 cover charge per person ($160 in total just to keep sitting at our table).

Nowhere on the website talks about needing to pay a cover charge, we were not told about the additional when we booked the reservation, nor when we were sat at our table. We told the woman that this was news to us, and she said there wasn’t anything she could do.

So we got up and left. We would have happily stayed for dinner and ordered drinks all night, but springing an additional huge fee on a large group when they’re already settled in is messed up.

The vibe was great, the food looked really good, but just be aware that they’re going to hustle you for way more money once you’re...