Rittenhouse Grill — Restaurant in Philadelphia

We were sorely disappointed in our experience at the Rittenhouse Grill. If you’re from Philadelphia, you listen to KYW “two, three, four times a day” for news, weather, traffic, and sports, and in the last month or so listeners have been treated to commercials for the Rittenhouse Grill, a classic steakhouse located in The Warwick Hotel, just off of Rittenhouse Square. The ads are appealing enough to make you check out the restaurant’s website, and if you click on the third tab over from the left (right after Menus and Drinks but before Order and Reservations) you’ll find Specials.

The specials page broadcasts their Tuesday to Friday Happy Hour and their Sunday Night Lite” special, a three-course prix fixe for $65 that lets you BYOB with no corkage fees. Sounded great to us, and worth the trip over the bridge, especially because the restaurant is absolutely lovely. We arrived and were greeted warmly and were given our choice of tables. We loved the restaurant’s décor - dark and leopard-themed but tasteful, and very romantic, with a pianist softly playing standards on a beautiful baby grand piano right in the middle of the restaurant.

We were delighted by the environment and enjoyed the cocktails we ordered when we sat down, but things went downhill from there. When we were handed the menu, there was no prix fixe visible anywhere – not printed on the menu and not attached as the evening’s special, as we often see in other restaurants. And though there was a tent card on the table marketing their Broadway prix fixe meal with entertainment for upcoming dates, again, no hint of the Sunday special. We had to ask the waiter for the Sunday special menu, and the moment we did so, you could feel the temperature drop and see the waiter’s attitude shift.

I’m not saying that the service was bad. He continued to be attentive. But the response reminded us of the way we were made to feel decades ago, when we were just starting off and took advantage of the coupon books that neighborhood kids used to sell as fundraisers. We remember the way that some of the restaurants required us to present the coupon before ordering, and a couple of experiences where we were embarrassed by the response we received from servers. In this case, our waiter’s demeanor shifted to the point where we felt like second-class citizens.

Again … the food was delicious, and there was nothing overtly bad about the service. It was subtle, small things. The look he gave us when we asked about the special and he told us he’d have to go get the menu, and upon his return, handing the two of us a single copy of the card. The way he responded when we placed our bottle of cabernet on the table: “Do you want wine glasses for that?” Honestly, what kind of question is that?

We have come a very long way since the days when we appreciated the nights out that the coupon book afforded us, but we’re not above taking advantage of a great deal. Unfortunately, when we did so at the Rittenhouse Grille, it converted what would otherwise have been a very nice night and meal into a thumbs-down encounter – and our heads-up warning to anybody thinking about an experience that left a bad taste...

I came here for the first time with my younger brother while visiting him on campus and I am here to say that if you can go anywhere else in Center City...GO. While this place was not absolutely terrible, it was not worth the price that I paid and the service could have been significantly better. First thing to note: THEY CHARGE YOU 20% GRATUITY! I emphasize this because the service was not worth a 20% gratuity. While I understand that there are people who do not tip, I am the type who will tip a server based on their service; it is only fair. When we arrived, there was no host/hostess to seat us so we had to wait 5 min for a waiter who proceeded to say "just sit anywhere downstairs"...excuse me? Just sit anywhere? I highly suggest that the manager hire a dedicated host/hostess for the future. The manager proceeded to help seat us after I told him what the waiter had said, but we did not have menus. We were just sitting at the table for 5 minutes before we called out to one of the other waiters and asked him for menus (he actually ended up being our waiter for the night). Once he brought us the menu, we proceeded to look over the menu (the menu on the website is different than the one we received, it is less extensive). Our waiter came back to take our appetizer order and I noticed how distracted he was. We ordered the oysters Rockefeller and he asked me how I wanted it cooked... When the manager helped seat us, he mentioned that there was a private event for Rosh Hashanah and there was a large party seated next to us that our waiter was also attending to, which is not a problem but also not a good excuse for a distracted waiter who was rushing everything with us and frantic. The food was okay but not worth the amount that they charge; I have been to places like Morton's and Capital Grille that have better food for the same price. Overall, this is not the type of place that I plan to come back to. The piano was beautiful and probably my favorite part but charging people 20% gratuity makes the waiters lazy; give people the opportunity to tip on their own or lower it to 15% gratuity OR train waiters to provide...

Readers: let me share my experience with inhospitality at Rittenhouse Grill. I leave it to the reader to decide whether my comments are fair. We did not eat there. Or drink there. We wanted to eat and drink there but, despite being seated at a high-top in the bar, our party of four was never served.

We started our evening at Spice Finch, a restaurant in the historic Warwick Hotel. After dinner, we thought we could go to the Rittenhouse Grill for dessert and a round of drinks. Despite there being empty tables in sight, the hostess would not seat us at a four-top table; instead, she directed us to a high top in the bar. As she gestured towards the bar area, her manager came into sight and - with no sign of interest at all - waved us towards the bar, where there were high top tables with two stools. Seeing that there were only two stools, I asked whether the manager wanted me to move the additional seats to the high top. . . I didn't think that we - paying guests - should have to move the chairs. The manager half-heartedly moved two stools to the high-top, clearly annoyed at the request. The bartender told us that he would call a server to our table. We then sat there and waited for a server. After a few minutes of waiting, a white-jacketed server came to say that - despite our sitting in the bar - he would be happy to take our order. He left our high top and never came back. I surmised - correctly - that he was told by the manager not to serve us. It was the manager's position that, because we were sitting in the bar, we were not entitled to table service. This is a nice restaurant. We were there to have a round of rather pricey after dinner drinks and dessert. We were dressed properly. The manager - Simo Lazizi by name - was rude, disinterested and unwelcoming. We sat. We waited. Eventually we left. I took the manager's name and his card, and I thought I would share this experience of inhospitable treatment with the...