The Porch at Bryant Park — Restaurant in New York

It looks like a porch hangout with it's outside patio furniture and overhead lights that set the ambiance. Apparently owned by Southwest Airlines. Hence the oh-so creative name "Southwest Porch."

We stumbled here on a slightly chilly Friday evening. Apparently this place stays open year round and they are prepared with heaters as well as a fire pit. Although I am not sure how well this will do when 1-3 feet of snow piles in, it is a nice touch. One full bar and a small bar in the back. Menu is not grand but the food pleasantly surprised me. They have a guy on the grill and they run the food out to you. I was expecting the worst from this little stand. It tasted like a mixture somewhere between a Panera Bread and La Pain Quotidien. Not bad at all! However, what sort of turned me off was that our wine was poured into a small plastic cup. I felt like I was at a house party. I don't know. Maybe that's the vibe they are going for. And I understand I am not dining at the finest restaurant but they do make plastic wine and champagne glasses. Just saying!

The dress is casual but you will find men in their business attire here for the happy hour. This place is buzzin for happy hour. The crowd seemed mostly mid 30's and up. My friend and I who are in our mid 20's felt a little out of place but we still hung around. Around 9pm, the place cleared out (my friend and I talk a lot). It was a cute place to hang but I wasn't blown away. Still, I would give it another shot when...

I have never met such horrible and rude staff members in NYC. I will never step foot in this place again. My niece and I took our kids to Manhattan for the 1st time and Bryant Park is our favorite-we took the kids here (3 of them, 2 sixteen year olds and a 13 year old) to The Porch, which we have enjoyed many time, knowing at least 1 of our kids might not enjoy their menu, we were happy to see there were other vendors (the porch is an outside drink/eat establishment). 1 of the kids grabbed a waffle while we waited to be waited on. Meanwhile, we had 3 people come to us and tell us, 1 after another, outside food was not allowed, another that we had to leave if we were not ordering, which we were waiting to. Just rude. Trust me, had the other 4 of us ordered except the 1 child, and had they told us that by switching sides, we had to order at the counter, all could have been fine BUT we all 5 got up and left after finishing my $16 cup of wine that was about 4oz. Rude rude rude people. Folks travel to NYC with their children and 1 out of 5 didn’t like the menu, they should be supportive of the vendors in the park after the few tough years we’ve all had. I honestly have never met more rude...

The atmosphere is the best thing about this place- but you can get that just by grabbing something somewhere else and sitting in the park. We were seated, and after a few minutes the female server came over and said "what can I get you". We asked which brand sodas they had coke or Pepsi and she said "yes". We asked which one and she finally said COke. We ordered sliders, fries, and a pretzel. The sliders came out and they were warm around the edges, and actually cold in the middle. The sautéed onions were cold.

The pretzel did not come out with the food and arrived 5 minutes later. The cheese sauce accompanying the pretzel was freshly removed from the refrigerator. Gelatinous and cold. I asked the server if the cheese wasn't supposed to be warm. She said it is always served cold.

There was a male server who did kindly help us with drink refills. The female server did come back and asked if I wanted to speak to the manager and I said yes. The manager apologized, and did take the pretzel and sliders off of the bill.

Food and service left...