The Victoria Theater Restaurant — Restaurant in New York

I was excited about going to this place because one of my friends had told me it was really nice. He suggested I check it out, so today, June 19, my friend and I decided to visit. We were looking for a place to eat.

At first, we didn’t know there was a restaurant until we asked the security guard. He directed us around the corner and up to the fifth floor. The atmosphere of entering the building, which was also a movie theater, was amazing. It looked like they had taken their time to make the place look very rustic.

On the way up to the fifth floor, I enjoyed the architecture and design. When we got upstairs, I was a bit confused because I couldn't tell the difference between the restaurant and the bar, nor who the hostess was. Initially, I walked over to the bar, where I saw chairs separated into groups. A gentleman in a suit was walking behind the bar, so I approached him. He was extremely unfriendly and unprofessional, acting like I was bothering him.

At first, I thought I was talking to the wrong person, but he turned out to be staff. I introduced myself and explained my seating dilemma. There were multiple chairs, and I wondered if anyone could move one so my friend and I could sit together at the bar. Despite his initial rudeness, he slightly changed his tone when I spoke to him professionally, but he still wasn't helpful.

We eventually went back to the bar, and the bartenders asked if we wanted a drink. We told them we would like to sit down, and they asked a couple sitting there to move so we could have seats. About 5 to 10 minutes after we sat down, the manager came over and said we didn't need him which I felt was unprofessional. For me, that was not proper customer experience , especially from a manager. I didn't feel welcome from him the he asked me how did I hear about the place as if I wasn’t supposed to be there. The audacity to to question me as if I’m not supposed to be here no worries I will not come back to this location on the other side not to be angel. I still chose to ask the manager for drink and food recommendations, and he suggested the Harlem Hurricane, which I ordered. It was strong. When I asked him about other dishes,, he acted too busy to engage, even though the place wasn’t busy. When he walked away My friend asked if I had checked the reviews, and I admitted I hadn't. When I finally looked, I saw the place had a 4.0-star rating. I usually prefer places with at least 4.0 stars. As I delved into the reviews, I noticed many one- and two-star ratings.

The common complaint was about the automatic gratuity charge, the service being unwelcoming regardless of party size. I also had a problem They charged us an automatic gratuity just for two drinks at the bar. After reading all the other complaints about the food and service, we decided not to eat there. I would like to wish the Victoria theater a good luck on service and quality. If you go to my reviews, you’ll see that I have travel multiple places and 90% of my views are based off of honesty. I probably will not be going back to this location anymore. I feel more welcome Down town than in my own neighborhood. We grew up and live here where so many people look like me and I’m not received the the service of a 5 Star Pl. because my money sure does spend five star. It just won’t be spending in our place. Customer service is everything and I want to feel appreciated when I spend my money. I work very very...

To preface, we stayed at the Renaissance for about a week and frequented the Victoria restaurant nightly as we were given $25 credits to use daily for the inconvenience of having our room switched to a double queen in place of a king suite.

The hostess was delightful! Super friendly and always had a smile to greet guests. The bartenders were wonderful. Gio was especially great!

The only time we dined in, it took 25 minutes for our server to take our order/get us water. This was despite making direct eye contact with us passing by multiple times. After taking our order, she didn’t let us know some of the menu items we ordered were out of stock until our food actually got to our table 30 minutes later. I decided to just order another beverage since our other entree was already at our table. I got the same beverage I had first ordered and it was an ENTIRELY different drink. Had my husband ask our original bartender if he wouldn’t mind remaking it and he was very kind about it. The inconsistency was just slightly annoying after waiting so long. We decided not to spend more money there as our bill was close to $90 after gratuity was added and our wrong drink wasn’t comped and the serve mixed up/didn’t use our entire $25 credit.

We did try to just get desserts and drinks every night after that and thankfully had no issues with the $5 champagne special (on Wednesdays). Every single time we went down to get dessert they were out of something. We had credits to use the last night so we figured we would try to order food to go to avoid the dine in issue we had on Monday just for them to be out of 1/3 of the menu again. It was really frustrating, especially after going around NYC all day and just wanting to come back and enjoy good food at our hotel.

As other reviews stated, the $25 vouchers really didn’t do much considering even if you went down to just grab a dessert and had a remaining credit of $10, you had to pay $2.50 in sales tax.

The 18% gratuity added onto everything, even water bottles, was downright annoying.

The live band on Monday and Thursday night was wonderful!! Love Deborah!!

Overall, I think it’s just poor communication internally. Most of the staff was awesome. I definitely won’t be going back, but am glad...

A friend and I, brought another friend her for a birthday breakfast. She had come for a dinner with her husband and enjoyed the meal and the ambiance. So we thought she’d enjoy breakfast here as well. The service was “rookie” level. Bringing out coffee and cream, when we didn’t have spoons demonstrated that the waitress had no instincts. I had to go to the bar and ask for spoons. The defensive reply was, “I was going to bring you spoons.” Since we had been waiting for a few minutes, and I didn’t want to stir with my finger, I had to go get the spoons! Additionally, the food took an inordinate amount of time to get to the table even considering the varying dish’s prep time. I ordered the Harlem Breakfast. This was mediocre diner quality. Nothing Harlem-esque about this. The potatoes were small skin on red potatoes that had one minuscule red pepper and a couple of onions. My friend had steak and eggs and asked for steak sauce and was brought chimichurri. Just no effort to make these things taste good to anyone who had functioning taste buds! But the worst was my friend who ordered a waffle as a side. She did expect something similar to a Belgian waffle, what she got was the flattest darkest waffle I have ever seen! Plus the butter for the toast and the waffle was brought out a good 5 minutes after the dishes were placed on the table. The butter packets were ice cold! I had to step in for my friend to ask them to take the waffle back because it was too cold to melt the even colder butter. They graciously took my friend’s plate and returned with the SAME waffle that had clearly been microwaved. A good restaurant would have brought out a fresh HOT waffle! We didn’t want to keep after the waitress about everything, because it was becoming a bit tiresome. We were there to enjoy a celebratory meal in this historical building. All the things noted here are things that a really good restaurant has in place. The staff, while polite and friendly, seemed inexperienced and just plain negligent. I would like for this business to become a successful part of the Harlem landscape, however I won’t be returning for...