Bourbon & Branch — Restaurant in Philadelphia

This is my first ever restaurant review, but I feel like I need to write it because people need to be warned. I’ve never experienced such disappointing and outright terrible service at a restaurant—not just once, but twice in a row.

As someone who worked in the restaurant industry for nearly five years as a server, I was hesitant to write a negative review after our first visit. I understand how tough the job can be. That said, two horrific experiences back to back is completely unacceptable.

Our first visit was with a server who seemed inexplicably angry with us from the moment we sat down. Before we could even say hello or place an order, she was acting like I put her on the schedule and forced her to work. We politely asked to sample a single beer from the menu, and she begrudgingly said “yes” like we had asked her to do a half-mile out back. When she returned, she slammed the samples onto the table so hard that beer splashed onto the table. Confused, we asked to order the beer we had sampled. She snapped, “I’m not grabbing you another sample,” to which we replied, “We want to order this beer.” She stormed off, returned, and once again slammed the beers down on our table. At that point, we asked if we had done something to upset her. Her only response: “No.” We were so uncomfortable that we got up and walked out. She grabbed the beers from our table with such speed I thought she was doing a sleight-of-hand trick. I've never walked out of a restaurant in my life until then.

Fast forward to today—we decided to give the place another shot, hoping that first encounter was just a one-off and shouldn't be judged by a server's bad night. We were seated, placed our order, and only one dish arrived. No big deal—mistakes happen. But we could clearly see our server standing next to the bar on her phone, chatting with what appeared to be her manager (who was more focused on his laptop and a plate of eggs than anything else). We waited 10 minutes until she even realized that only one dish had arrived. When she did, she apologized and admitted she forgot to put it in. My order was rushed out another 10 minutes later, but by then, my partner’s food was cold.

The food? A bland brunch burrito that tasted like chewed-up printer paper. Meanwhile, the server, who only had two other tables, spent most of her time talking to her coworkers and egg boy at the bar. After we finished eating, we waited... and waited... and waited—15 minutes before we finally flagged her down for takeout containers and the check. By then, I just wanted to leave and never come back as we spent a solid 45 minutes just waiting for this lady to do her job.

If the place were packed, I’d be more understanding. But it was dead. They had an army of ten servers standing around, and yet the service was abysmal. It feels like the hiring process consists of seeing if the person can put the correct shapes in the correct holes and then handing them an apron. Based on our last two visits, these were quite literally the worst servers I’ve ever encountered.

Management needs to either train their staff or hire people with actual serving experience—maybe judge them on their qualifications rather than how many piercings and tattoos they can fit on their body. Serving isn’t rocket science, but somehow this place still can’t...

Nice atmosphere , very cozy , very Irish, British style looking pub with extensive oak and mahogany, sturdy and traditional, solid wooden tables with dark finishes, high back stools at the bar, this was a Sunday evening and had a nice little crowd and everyone was having a good time. We decided to order the seitan wings, vegan nachos, and a vegan cheesesteak, and two mocktails, the wings and the nachos came out together. The wings were a over crispy and hard, the inside was very dried out, which made them hard to eat so we re-ordered and asked to have them fry the wings half the amount of time from the previous order and they turned out much better, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside with a nice hot honey sauce, vegan ranch an fresh cut celery and carrot sticks as a side. The vegan nachos were piled high and layered nicely with vegan chorizo, tomatoes black beans, cheese sauce, cilantro, only thing more than halfway through the nachos we realized, there was no guacamole or vegan sour cream, the server apologized and brought sides right out, we also asked for cut limes on the side, see this a lot when notches are being served. The vegan cheesesteak we ordered halfway through the meal, our plan take a bite could have, and take the rest home, it taste good.The only thing missing is, the bread should be toasted, The roll looked fantastic, but it was a little bit spongy, later on that evening, I threw it in the air fryer for two minutes, and it came out perfect, nice and crusty on the outside the sesame seeds come alive when you toast them, the inside was soft and cheesy the seitan meat was nice and tender. For mocktail‘s we had the Arnold Schwartz and Palmer. Which consisted of cucumber, mint, lemonade, and iced tea They were out of mint. This would’ve made the difference in the drink so it was pretty good but definitely needed that extra flavor. The Peter Cetera, lime juice, vanilla grapefruit, topped with club soda was very good. Our server was very nice as was the host and took care of the corrections. will definitely be back. Sidenote , took some pictures of the menu website is much better to look at. They do have a lot of specials during the week six dollar smash burgers and some dinner specials so...

Great food, sour service. Went to B&B for the first time in a long time as I've heard so many good reviews about the vegan food. It was a Friday night, so we waited outside 40 minutes for a table of 2. Definitely not the end of the world & something that I had expected on a busy night.

When we were seated, I chatted back-and-forth with the waiter about the best vegan options and eventually settled on the vegan pizza. My boyfriend and I also ordered drinks. About a half hour later, we still didn't have drinks or food, so we were just thought they forgot the drinks. Neither of us said anything, and we were happy to go without as long as they weren't on the check. The food came, and I was given a vegan cheesesteak instead of pizza. Again, I didn't say anything because it was still a vegan option and I just thought they got confused. While we were eating, our waiter came over, and said that our drinks would be out in a little bit, to which I told her that we didn't want them anymore.

She gave me some pushback and I just said I'm really sorry, but I thought we would get them a half hour ago, not at the end of our meal. She told me that she just reminded the bartender & was nervous to tell him we didn't want them so we had to get them. I totally understand this giving us the drinks if they're already being made, but I feel like after waiting a half hour we shouldn't have been forced to get the drinks we ordered at the beginning of the meal, especially when they are $15 apiece. After that, another waiter realized that my order was wrong and ended up bringing me the vegan pizza. I literally am never someone that writes reviews because I totally understand mistakes happen, but it just felt like there were multiple situations where some sort of customer service would've been applicable (removing the drinks from the check, removing my meal from the check since it was wrong, apologizing the drinks took so long, etc) and absolutely none of it happened. I also realized upon arriving home I tipped another 20% to a check that already had gratuity included (I didn't notice) for bad service.

The food was really good but since it's not cheap ($100 for 2 people), I don't plan on coming back bc the service was...