Violette's — Restaurant in New York

UPDATE - MARCH 6, 2025 - I wouldn't touch this place with a 10 foot pole. More than 25% of our guests, myself included, became sick with fevers and/or gastrointestinal issues, including diarrhea and vomiting. I did not previously mention that we discovered a carton of moldy cream cheese placed on our table for the family style bread/bagel basket. I usually disregard and not mention small and hopefully isolated things like this because I know restaurant business is hard, but who knows what other unhygienic things happen behind closed doors? This experience has caused our family and friends so much physical and emotional pain.

Came here for my niece's 1 year old birthday party so we were in the private party room. I was somehow assuming that if you are hosting a kid's birthday party that you would be a restaurant that is kid-friendly. Boy, was I wrong.

As a new mom to a now 4-month old, I do my best to be proactive and prepare for everything. We had the room booked for 4 hours. I am okay with knowing that the restaurant is not stroller accessible - fine, we can deal with that and carry the stroller up and down the stairs from the entrance, okay. BUT when you say you have a baby changing table, DO NOT give us the worst excuse of a table. The changing table was high above the open toilet and only in the women's restroom in only one of the stalls. There was no way I could change her when she was basically face-to-face with me and above my elbows. One wrong move, my baby would have ended up with her head in the toilet. Safety hazard. I was furious to be faced by such a ridiculous situation and not being able to offer my child a safe option to be comfortable at a child's birthday party. I had to change my baby in the corner of the party room in her own car seat and was faced with judgmental stares by the restaurant staff. Unbelievable. When you give me no options, I have to do what I have to do. There were multiple young children in our party and we all had to make do - we were there for 4 hours after all. It would have been nicer to not have any changing table than that one. You probably would have needed to be a 6-foot tall woman to use it. I even had to support my sister-in-law to change the birthday girl (the star of the party) because she was NOT about to be butt-naked in front of all her family and friends in the party room. We had to keep the bathroom stall open because both of us adults wouldn't have fit in the stall.

I haven't even said anything about the food yet either though there doesn't need much to be said because it was terrible. I was left hungry and dissatisfied. I'm not even sure I ate real eggs for my BEC because my scrambled eggs were drowned in the strange cheese sauce. The bread that it was on was the end piece of a loaf. Who serves the end piece of a bread loaf?

Safe to say that I don't ever need to come back here even if my child is all well and grown and won't need any changing table anymore. I'll definitely be remembering this restaurant experience as an immensely negative one in my life.

P.S. To the staff - please do something about the two steps to the party room, if you need to have the host warn people about tripping on those steps every time someone walks by, you should probably have some physical marker to let...

Came for Mother’s Day brunch and I am so disappointed. My family decided to do the breakfast buffet $50/person. Food was good! Omelette station was very good, there was a nice variety of cheeses and pastries, dinner/lunch foods, pancakes, bagels. I particularly liked the omelettes, pancakes, & potatoes.

Everything else absolutely sucked.

The person making omelettes was trying to run 4-5 frying pans at a time. Oil was burning off and smoking nearly the entire 1.5 hours we were there. The entire room was filled with smoke. I had to ask the hostess to please do something since people were literally coughing and having a hard time breathing! They did turn the AC on so it helped which was appreciated. Bacon was undercooked (no crispy bacon in sight). Service was not great. We did not have a regular waiter/waitress even though the hostess originally told us we would. So we had to flag people down to ask for people to take drink orders, and then had to ask when we’d be able to get up to get our food. Everyone we spoke with to get help was extremely nice but it was not easy to grab someone’s attention. Huge lack of organization.

Absolutely no drinks were included in the $50/person brunch. Not even COFFEE! Which we only found out when the bill came. $3.50 per person that got coffee. Refills were free though. But kind of ridiculous that for $50 no mimosa or even coffee was included?

Had to ask multiple people just to bring our bill because they were so busy trying to turn over these tables to get ready for the next round of buffet brunchers. Bill also has a credit card usage charge. Not a shocker but just a warning to bring cash.

Overall, food was good but for the cost, atmosphere, and service please just do yourself a favor and go to a diner or cook your mom breakfast. She...

Although we have enjoyed Violett’s Cellar's regular sit-down brunches, their holiday events appear to lack exceptional quality for the price charged. We recently went there hoping to enjoy their Mother’s Day brunch, which was disappointing. There’s always an understanding that not everyone is always seated promptly for every reservation. However, a near 45 minute wait for a 12:00pm seating was longer than any understanding. From the massive crowd waiting to be seated, it was easy to determine that Violets overbooked and under staffed this event. When we finally got a table, we were quickly disappointed. There was a line to have any grilled items cooked. Now the concept of “Buffet”, from my understanding, is that the majority of the food is ready and available. Most lines that do occur move quickly once the plate is at hand. Instead, we waited a good ten minutes to get one midocore pancake. The quality of the majority of the food was even below the craziest ihop standards for triple the cost. The service was near unnoticeable when needed but noticeable when seen complaining to each other. What added insult to digestive injury, was the ridiculous added on gratuity for wishing for McDonalds hotcakes than this disappointment. Mind you there is no mention of gratuity in any of their advertising. Our Mother’s Day experience at Violett’s was extremely disappointing. For regular times, they are generally delightful but for these holiday events, they are...