City Sliders Steakhouse at the Westlawn Inn — Restaurant in North Beach

We attended on the night of their grand opening. As NB locals, we were so excited to have a new place in town to try out! The experience was underwhelming, but the food was mostly tasty.

Even though we had a reservation, the hostess did not really look us up on a computer or seem to have a system where the reservations were held. We were told the wait was 15 minutes so we decided to have a drink in the bar first. Well, actually we couldn’t because they don’t have a liquor license yet. So only drink options are Diet Coke, coke, and sprite (prob from the soda tap in the bar).

Throughout the entire evening, no silverware or napkins were provided. The guy next to us jokingly left napkins on our table on his way out saying “you’ll probably need these!” He was right.

The menus were overcrowded with text and had the same exact thing printed on both sides (why not space out the options over the two pages?). Also, there was no explanation on the menu for what an “entree” included verse a single slider.

When my Diet Coke came out, there was a dead bug on the rim of the glass. Yuck.

Kitchen was backed up. Our food started to come out 43 minutes after ordering. It was quite tasty! However, everything came out sporadically at separate times. We got our cheese fry appetizer after finishing our sliders. The milkshake was ordered at the same time as our dinner, but came out very late and it was basically all milk (super runny and dripping on the glass).

We noticed all the non-alcoholic beverages at people’s tables were served in random cups from the bar - no consistency in quantity. We had tall cocktail glasses for soda and others had Sam Adams pint glasses for soda.

The staff were friendly enough, but completely lacked training. People were being sat at their tables before they were bussed, hostesses were bussing tables for some reason, and like I said no napkins or utensils.

No music. The lighting inside was way too bright, and the people outside were sitting in the dark. The design of the restaurant is lacking - it’s now a burger joint but still looks like the westlawn inn with outdated furniture in lobby and old school decor / paint colors.

So much potential but still needs a lot work. I will give it a few months and try again. I really...

we went for brunch when they first opened about 3 or 4 years ago. we waited until now to go back. that should tell you something. since our initial mediocre overpriced brunch we saw they have rebranded as a high end steak house so we tried them again. firstly, their website is terrible and their posted prices don't match their "menu". I say "menu" because they are too cheap to supply you with a real menu. you have to use a QR code. I dine out at least twice a week i n the DMVand I have not seen this since COVID. we waited at the greeters stand for at least 3 minutes before we were noticed, by the disheveled bartender in an adjacent room. not a good start. so, at 6:30pm, with only 2 other tables occupied inside, we were seated directly under a fairly loud large screen tv with ESPN on (one of 3 active tvs). this noise, in addition to lame very bassy music being pumped in, made conversation difficult. when we asked if the TV, which no one was watching, could be lowered we were flatly told no. asked if we could be moved we were told only to an outside table. we eventually had to turn it off ourselves: nobody noticed. we ordered a cheeseburger and a fried chicken sliders , 2 per order, with fries and spinach with roasted garlic confit. the portions were small and very bland in taste. the garlic was excellent and the highlight of the meal along with the limes for our ice tea. lol. the waitress was not too attentive and we had to hunt her down after she failed to take our credit card after we waited for her for almost 10 minutes. 2 waitresses were now serving 6 tables. we won't be back. steak prices rival DC and Annapolis if not higher. more poseur than...

Really disappointed as we were so excited, as NB locals, to have a new restaurant in town! On our first attempt, we were seated immediately, waited 20 minutes and weren’t acknowledged by the staff or server water, so we left. So.. we tried again. The second time, we were turned away at 4:45pm for an early dinner because we were told we needed a reservation after 4:30pm (which is not advertised anywhere and we felt was a bit unusual for such an early time of day).

The third time we did make a reservation for a Wednesday, we came 5 minutes early only to be told they wouldn’t seat us, so we had to wait outside… until our scheduled time when we walked in and it seemed like they had forgotten we were the only party waiting outside for our table. Finally, we were seated… and sat for 15 minutes without being acknowledged by any of the servers or the manager who was walking the floor talking to tables. There weren’t even many tables filled. To be honest, no table in the restaurant who did have their food seemed particularly happy with it. Overall ambiance was strangely quiet and awkward- to be honest it feels like the opening was very rushed for this place- as of Wednesday they still don’t have their liquor license yet. The staff doesn’t seem trained and really disappointed that when we left a third time, the hostess didn’t even acknowledge us or probably know we were leaving after 15 minutes because we didn’t even get a glass of water. Kind of insane. It’s hard for me to believe that there is another City Sliders in DC.

Wanted to give this place a chance but I’m not sure we’ll be back...