Five West — Restaurant in Rochester

My fiancé and I, along with his family, ate here for Sunday brunch, for a total party of five folks. It was definitely busy when we arrived, though we were seated very quickly, and the atmosphere had a fun, chic and hip vibe to it. Prices and food portions were very good-- no complaints there!

The menu was nothing short of basic with nothing original nor any "unique takes" on dishes, such as your basic meat lovers omelet, biscuits & gravy, a breakfast sandwich, and burgers and chicken dishes for traditional lunch options. The presentation was nice, the food was good, though, like I said, there's nothing unique or fresh when it comes to items on the menu. The only concern was that my fiancé ordered his burger medium rare, my FIL ordered his well-done, and they both came out well-done.

Service-- this is where things really went south quickly. Service was slow to nonexistent at bet, and while I am understanding that it was a busy brunch/lunch crowd, we sat for easily 15 minutes without drink orders taken. When she took the drink orders, she asked my father-in-law what he wanted, then immediately began taking food orders, not asking the rest of us what we wanted for beverages.

It took about 30 minutes for our food to come out, brought out by a server whom we'd never seen, though they were friendly and asked if we needed anything else. After this, we were on our own for the rest of the meal-- our server disappeared for the entire meal, never checking in on us nor refilling beverages, never once acknowledging the slowness or lack of service.

Would we give Five West another try? Yes, we would, because almost everyone deserves a second chance to get things right. Moreover, we believe that everyone and every restaurant has its "off days," and this may have been the case at Five West in...

We got the edamame, kids corn dogs, and the avocado chicken melt. Overall good food, but shady business practices have me saying stay away until they figure that part out.

Friendly servers and hostesses Nice upscale feeling environment Nice patio

2% added tax on the bill for 'Employee Wellness'. Just bake this into your menu prices, don't randomly upcharge your customers after they've already agreed to a price. $2.00 split plate fee. Just dumb. tipping options displayed start at 20% when you pay and go up from there. I consider this unethical pressure as well.

EDIT: I am unable to reply to a comment from the owner, but I'd like to address it here: "We decided to add the Wellness Fee as a separate line item so that guests can have it removed if they would like. We are just attempting to take care of the great staff we have."

The fact that you replied in defense of this practice cements why I came away from your restaurant with a bad taste in my mouth. You employ your staff and you should be responsible for providing them a fair living - don't shunt that responsibility onto your customers with unethical, unadvertised added fees. Your fee is optional? How is that any different than a tip? At least with a tip people have a semblance of control over what they choose to freely give, forcing a fee that people can ask to remove is putting the onus onto your patrons in an emotionally manipulative way.

Please just transparently charge for your meals what it takes to pay your employees a fair wage, and if that means upping your menu pricing by 2% across the board than that is the most responsible way to do that.

I also don't understand your comment: "We lost all of these items on our menu and website" - does this mean you removed...

The atmosphere was wonderful, and they paid special attention to COVID policies. Our waitress was super friendly and in top of things!

My wife ordered the watermelon sangria for her drink of choice. It was very refreshing to drink in a warm day!

For our appetizer, we ordered the flank steak tacos. There were three tacos total. One taco had a bunch of steak while the other two were lacking a bit, so we distributed the steak a bit more evenly. It was a great choice of theirs to double up on the tortillas for each taco. Every bite was savory and the hint of like added nice acidity.

Our main dishes consisted of Maple Bourbon Fried Chicken and Steak Fettuccini. The Chicken dish was very flavorful, had an amazing crispiness on the outside. The whole dish worked very well together and individually. Everything was fresh! The Steak Fettuccini had a nice herbal flavor and good sear. The pepper, mushroom, spinach, and pasta worked very well with the steak. It was a bit hard trying to get all ingredients in one bite, and I was hoping for a bit more of the portobello, but in the end it was exactly what I wanted. I will say that half of my steak consisted of a large fatty portion and was inedible, so I had to work around that as it sat on my plate the whole meal.

We finished the night with the chocolate chippers dessert! There were so many cookies that had that perfect consistency that I love! The cookie was very moist and warm. The ice cream was light and the whipped cream on top added to the delight of this amazing dessert.

In the end, I will gladly have a date night there again! Everyone sitting around had some really delicious looking dishes!

Great atmosphere and...