Bottle Bar East — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Food is great, solid selection of beers (massively overpriced pickup though, $20+ 6 packs of Yards that are $11 at Yards 0.5mi away), but they just can’t get a pickup order right to save their lives. Always missing a (paid) sauce, forgot an ingredient on a burger or chicken sandwich, etc.

Last time I ordered they got one of our sandwiches completely wrong. After calling and asking if they could simply remake it and I’d run over and pick it up again, they told me they can’t “just make another” one because they “track inventory”. Perhaps the FOH staff is new in the restaurant industry or something because they acted like my request was total insanity and instead wanted me to buy another sandwich and then request a refund from Grubhub for the first. Wonder what happens in the kitchen when food gets dropped considering their Fort Knox levels of inventory control.

On top of issues nearly every order, I’m almost not surprised because the way their menu is presented on Grubhub changes weekly — sometimes the chicken sandwich includes BBE sauce sometimes not, can’t order extra side sauces on a chicken sandwich but can on a burger, weird stuff every time. If you try using their website for online ordering, it randomly chooses to tell you menu items aren’t available for order even after calling and confirming they are. Staff can’t help and for some reason can’t take orders over the phone (but can put in a pickup order at the tablet right next to the phone in person).

Truly a shame that their pickup business is amateur hour because their food is delicious. We’ve given them so many chances and still will but it’s an issue...

Enough cannot be said about how incredible Bottle Bar has been to me and my friends over the last 2 months. I've been going to Bottle Bar for years, since I lived in the neighborhood, and it's always been a solid place to grab a beer and good bar food. Nothing has changed, they're still solid night in and night out. Recently, they were gracious enough to reserve the back patio for my group to watch playoff hockey a few nights during the week and it's become our new home. Even during intense covid restrictions, they were doing their best with a limited staff and we only had stellar experiences. Our group would be sometimes as small as a dozen and other nights would swell upwards to 30 and the staff never missed a beat. The beer selection is great, between the singles in the fridge or what's on tap that week. The food is ALWAYS on point. If you're not ordering food here, you're doing yourself a disservice. The entire staff is incredible, friendly, and so accommodating. A very special thank you to Mike who went above and beyond for us, to Colin behind the bar who took care of our entire group for many nights, and to the folks in the kitchen who kept us full especially when we needed to stress eat during some intense playoff games. We're so stoked to have a permanent home at BBE, for as long as...

Never again. The management got off easy, and, rather than be fined, should be serving a lengthy prison sentence. If you work for a living, do not patronize this establishment.

See below:

U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigators found that BHMK Enterprises LLC – operator of Bottle Bar East – violated the minimum wage, overtime, and recordkeeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The division determined the employer failed to pay bartenders and servers any cash wages, causing them to work for tips only, and required workers to attend quarterly staff cleaning meetings, but did not pay front-of-house employees for the time they spent there. These actions violated the FLSA minimum wage requirements.

In addition, investigators found Bottle Bar East paid back-of-house employees straight-time wages for all the hours that they worked, including those in excess of 40 hours worked in a single workweek. The law requires overtime pay for hours employees work beyond 40 in a workweek. The employer also failed to pay overtime to front-of-house servers and bartenders. After the investigation, the department filed a complaint against the company in court to resolve...