Front Street Cafe — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I experienced living here 25 years ago. It’s remarkable how they have revamped this area when I entered this café. It causes you to forget about the old Fishtown entirely, such a lovely place with a great warm feeling upon arrival. We were promptly seated around 6:15 PM., the menu selection was fantastic covering all the bases from vegan to vegetarian options along with a variety of regular menu items. We visited during vegan restaurant week which runs until November 2, it offers the best value during restaurant week, with a nice selection of appetizers, main courses, and desserts, along with an excellent drink menu, weekly specials, happy hour, and more.

We started with a perfectly crafted ginger turmeric latte and a lavender, blackberry, gin, and tonic with blueberries instead of blackberries, which was fine. The drinks were refreshing and well made. For appetizers, we ordered the crispy brussels sprouts with plant Parmesan, roasted pepper Coulis, and truffle. The truffle flavor was subtle, but the brussels sprouts were cooked perfectly with enough flavor from the Parmesan and roasted red pepper. The spinach artichoke dip with fresh tortilla chips was very good, although not the absolute best.

For our main courses, we tried the truffle mushroom lasagna with mushroom bacon, which was excellent despite a lack of truffle flavor. We also had the farmers pie, a simple but perfectly executed dish with autumn flavors. Dessert consisted of sharing the Carmel cashew cheesecake, a rich and creamy treat with a great crust, and the vegan s’mores brownie, which was deliciously done with a chocolatey caramel crust on the outside and a molten chocolate center with slightly charred marshmallow.

At $35, the value was excellent, especially compared to the regular price of $50-$60. Our server Chloe was very pleasant. Overall, it was an excellent evening where we had engaging conversations with other patrons about vegan restaurants and new dining spots, exchanging recommendations and ideas. This restaurant is definitely worth a visit if you haven’t been yet. Just a side note, they serve freshly baked ciabatta bread with Parmesan whip, which is absolutely fantastic and among the best...

I hate doing this but something needs to be said about what was the worst restaurant experience I have ever had.

First, we had a reservation for 12:30 and ended up showing up early. The hostess was very annoyed by this and let us know that we could not be seated until 12:30. (Which, fine, it's the time we reserved. However, she kept accepting walk ups for the next 30 minutes and there were empty tables all around.) This hostess was very rude. When people would walk in with outside beverages or maskless, rather than calmly correct them she would jump out and practically shame them LOUDLY. It was uncomfortable to just witness and clearly uncomfortable for the few people who eventually just left after the encounter. (Again, fine! Those are the rules, but you don't need to make a scene about it.)

When 12:30 hit we were finally seated. And they let us know we only had the table for 90 minutes. Our server did not show up for 20 minutes, and we didn't get our beverages until 45 minutes in and we hadn't even ordered our food yet. We joked that they would bring our food in to go boxes because they were going to kick us out after 90 min when the food finally came. Our server was very nice, the three times we saw her. Once to get our drink order, once to drop off the drinks and take our order, and finally at the end to bring back our receipts. When our food finally came, we were all incredibly disappointed. We all ordered the eggs benedict and the eggs were practically hard boiled. One of us didn't even eat 1/4th of her meal it was so bad. (The house fries were very good!) Our server didn't even collect our checks, another server did. We waited yet another 15 minutes just waiting to sign the receipts. Our original server brought them and did not even look at us. Dropped them and RAN. Some of us were sitting outside because we were getting incredibly annoyed. We did not leave Front Street until a little after 2:30 PM. We will not be going back, and when people talk about bad restaurant experiences this will be the one I tell. Here's a photo attached of me literally begging for help at the...

The atmosphere and the food here are not in alignment. While walking by, my partner and I decided to stop in versus another place for brunch. The place looks very nice and the Reanimator coffee they serve with optional housemade syrup is very good. The food was another story. Although my partner enjoyed his food a bit more, I found nothing I ordered to be good. I ordered their ricotta pancakes, which were not true ricotta pancakes. Instead of the ricotta being mixed into the batter to create a tender texture and exceptional flavor, they merely poured an overly sweet ricotta glaze over the pancakes. The pancakes themselves tasted like they were made from a cheap box mix. And the syrup they gave me was "pancake syrup" instead of maple syrup. To my surprise, the side of eggs I ordered (which were actually decent) came to a whopping total of $7.50 simply because I added cheddar. $7.50 for two eggs with cheese. I could have bought an entire dozen eggs for that price. Lastly, I ordered their mushroom lentil scrapple and mushroom bacon sides because I love good vegan/vegetarian foods and I wanted to give these uncommon menu items a try. The mushroom lentil scrapple was underseasoned and on the bland side. The mushroom bacon was just a handful of mushrooms that were deep fried with no seasoning or bacon marinade (usually a combo of soy sauce, liquid smoke, smoked paprika, garlic & onion powder, black pepper, and a little maple syrup). You know...for actual bacon-style flavor. The plain deep fried mushrooms were like eating super thin unsalted potato fries, only made of mushroom. And just the fact that they chose to fry them over marinating and baking them until crisp (as is custom) was strange and off-putting. They were not good. And with all of this, the prices did not even come close to matching the quality. Huge disappointment given the aesthetics of the place and our desire to eat a tasty meal. We won't be back. There is a lot of good food in Fishtown. This isn't one of those places. The people here are unfortunately serving incredibly mediocre food for a...