Tradesman's — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I attended a recreational employee dinner hosted by my boss to lift morale. Most of us never heard of this bar/restaurant. I was intrigued since our company is a high end restaurant in Chestnut Hill. If the owner and former head chef picked it, it must be good, right? HELLZ YEAH!!!!!!

The drinks were potent and yummy. The mac & cheese with brisket was sublime!!!!! The grand entrance of the 6ft (?) cheesesteak with fresh cut sweet potato waffle fries were spectacular. SPARKLERS!!!!! The garlic parmesan wings were super. The nachos were on point, light & crips, not stale or greasy.

My ONLY disappointment which was shared with another friend at the party were the baby back ribs. We loved the sauce- just right, not too spicy/hot with tangy gooey yummyliciousness. However the ribs themselves were MOSTLY BONE. It was basically use licking the sauce and the few bits of meat off the top. It was hard to even find any separation to cut it to get the meat in between. I wish they offered SPARE RIBS which usually have more tender, juicy meat on the bone. Cause I LOOKED at the menu before ordering the baby backs. Hell, they coulda just put BBQ sauce on the brisket and I would have had a foodgasm. Maybe I'll do that next time on my own.

That said, I will definitely go there again but I will never order the ribs. There are so many other perfect food offerings to keep me happy that I ain't mad, LOL. Also, the TVs provided viewer ankles for everyone regardless of where they sat. And the bar stools were COMFORTABLE too. Our waitress was attentive and professional but not aloof. The bartenders helped us out too with friendly responses. I apologize because I forget their names.

After all, I was so snookered from the booze, I am happy that I still remembered to give this review. It's 3 days later and I am still thinking about the dinner. Give it a try! Many of us took SEPTA, its easy to get to from bus, subway, regional rail and cost less to PARK in Center City. That said, SEPTA getting ready to go on strike so...... don't care how you get to Tradesman, just TRY IT...

We had reservations for 9:30 on 4th of July 2021. We got there on time. We weren’t really sat/greeted at our outdoor table for about 20 minutes. Our waitress was really nice though and helpful.

We ordered appetizers and drinks a little before before 10 pm. She came back to get our full order at 10:15 pm when she brought back our appetizers and drinks (which is an appropriate amount of time I feel). About 20 min later she returned stating the kitchen was closed and had closed at 10 Pm (even though they officially closed at 11 Pm) but no one told her before she placed the order. She tried VERY hard to negotiate with her manager and the kitchen but to no avail. We have no hard feelings toward her and still tipped her before we left, but however here are my concerns:

1). If Tradesman knew they were closing the kitchen early of 4th of July, why would you still allow a 9:30 pm reservation?

2). Why didn’t they inform us of that the kitchen was closing early at 10 pm as soon as we were sat and greeted?

3). Why did it take so long to be sat and greeted in the first place? We probably would have been able to make the cutoff time if we’d been taken care of earlier, because we were there at EXACTLY 9:30.

I will say that the manager did comp our entire order (including alcohol) and offered to make us some chicken fingers and fries which was accepted (because one of our friends had taken her mealtime insulin as soon as we arrived at 9:30 in anticipation of us eating and she began to get hypoglycemic before we left). But STILL—the whole situation made NO SENSE and left a bitter taste in our mouths...which is ironic because we didn’t really get to eat much...

I don’t leave reviews but had to after the experience I had at Tradesman. This place just opened up across from where I work so my wife and I decided to meet there for happy hour before going to dinner. All the seats by the bar were taken so I ordered a beer and sat at a two top table while I waited for her to get there (she works in university city so taking the bus can take her 20 minutes or so with traffic).

As soon as I sat down a waitress named Robin came over and said “are you planning to eat”. Nice to meet you too lol. I told her I was meeting someone and waiting for them to get there and that we would be ordering an appetizer and drinks before our dinner. She told me I had to close out my tab at the bar and order all food and drinks from the table if I was going to sit there. Fine.

15 minutes later after finishing my beer I head to the bar to close out my tab since my wife was a few minutes away and that’s what I was told to do. In the 2 minutes it took me to close out the tab and head back to the table to place food/drink orders, Robin sat another couple at the table! I looked at her and said thanks for saving the table for me. I walked out the door and met up with my wife a couple minutes later to get drinks/appetizers somewhere else.

The one beer I had was good, atmosphere decent, service not so much. It may just be the one waitress who was rude, but out of all the places I’ve eaten in Philly this was the most offput I’ve been from a server. There are enough other great restataunts in the area that we won’t be heading back...