Tartinery Café - Bar | Grand Central — Restaurant in New York

I commute to/from Grand Central daily. There are times when I have some down time, and on those days I will usually stop by the Oyster Bar for a drink and a snack. Today, to my detriment, I decided to stop by this place instead.

Waited approximately 10-15 minutes (or maybe more, it seemed like an eternity) for service while sitting at the counter. The bartenders and other staff were busy doing this or that, chatting with the patrons or each other but no one came over to ask me what I wanted. Finally some other customer came over and sat at the bar, right next to me, and the bartender asked them what they wanted instead.

Needless to say I got pretty miffed. I told the bartender that I had been waiting forever, and that I should be served first. Not a word of apology. I walked out and will never return.

The food may be good and so may be the drinks. I will never know, because the service on the only day I wanted to give this place a try was horrific, and I will avoid the Tartinery like a plague from now on. My reviews are generally fair, but service is of utmost most importance to me, and I base my overall score on the way that I am treated at a place. I refuse to spend money at an establishment that treats me like crap. And believe me, I lived in NYC for 30 years prior to moving to CT, so I've seen it all, and have grown some seriously thick skin. But this was just too much.

EDIT: Thank you for your reply, but I think you are mistaken as to the time I spent at the counter waiting to be served. I would not have complained if I had waited 3.5 minutes. I was not in a hurry, as I planned to take a late train that day. I sat at the counter and watched employees converse with customers, chat with each other, and even saw an employee being berated by another (perhaps senior) employee for a while. But I don't know exactly what date that was; the date of the review is probably off a day or two, as possibly I finished and posted it a day or two after I began it. I know it was in the late afternoon/early evening.

I understand that it is difficult to please everyone. But I really don't like to be put in that kind of a situation when all I want after a hard day of work is a drink and a snack, and instead I get ignored AND a customer who just came in gets attention right away. I do not expect people to bend to my demands, or jump on command immediately. But I do expect some measure of customer service,...

On March 10th I ordered an orange juice for my girl and a lemon juice for myself. Then I started looking at them using only 1 machine to make all the juices and I just kept thinking how the taste was not going to be mixed with other fruits and vegetables, because there’s no way you can make a ginger and beet juice few seconds before, don’t wash the machine and tell me I’ll won’t taste it in my juice. So juice was ready and she tried and right away she said the exact same thing I was thinking her juice tasted everything but orange. I would never make this review only because of that, because this can happen and it is fine but the disrespectful treatment that I received from the manager (Indian guy with heavy accent) was unacceptable. When I told him what happened, he came at me angry and yelling, ironically asking if I wanted more juice after spending hours drinking it, even though I’ve ordered the juice 2 min ago. I said to him that maybe he just could wash the machine in order to make a new juice for my girl, but he said he does that way all his life and was not gonna change. After asking him again to remake the juice, he grabbed a small little cup, with probably a half squeezed orange and told to me fill it out now in the cup with the orange juice. Like what? Why doing that? All I wanted was just a fresh orange juice. He then said that I didn’t know how a orange juice tasted (I was born in Brazil and raised in Florida, I know about orange for sure) After an exhausting and stressful argument he made another cup and told me to get off. That single day me and my family spent more than +$250 in a pizza restaurant next to them because I told them that the “Fresh made juice” place was not a option at all to be and feel safe and...

I am very upset with how I was treated here! I commute a lot to the city from the Hamptons and I always treat staff and bartenders very well. I came here before getting on my train on my way back home to the Hamptons where I live year round. It was Valentine’s Day and also my birthday and I purposely bought a bouquet of roses to pay it forward to random people. I had given the bartender a few roses for Valentine’s Day, as an act of kindness, sat down and ordered a drink but I was told I was too drunk” to be sold a cocktail. I am always energetic and happy and the staff actually believed I was intoxicated and they wouldn’t serve me a cocktail. I always make it a point to be nice to everyone and the bartender told me i was “too intoxicated”. We even took a selfie together and he was so happy I gave him a rose. I’ve never written a bad review in my life but the way I was treated was so beyond wrong that I could actually cry because I was trying to be sweet to the staff by handing out roses but I guess they thought I was drunk and they laughed in my face. Soo upsetting especially for a Long Island local who looks forward to places like this when I commute into the city. I will not name names but I do have them and will be nice enough to not share them....