The Eastman — Restaurant in Rochester

I really hate to post this review but… I am a singer/songwriter who is nominated for a Best in Detroit Award by Hour Magazine (one of my competitors is Eminem) and am a restaurant owner with an MBA & food critic.

I gave the restaurant a heads up that I will be arriving last night. I tried to make reservations, but didn’t see any way to make any at all.

I took my best friend know who I haven’t spend time with him months we travel two hours to get to the restaurant; once we arrived, it was totally packed, and they said it in the back of the restaurant. It was horrible. There were two tables in the back, facing the back door, totally away from the restaurant. Then they proceeded to bring us two menus to look over, but they said they couldn’t service in the area because it wasn’t in the dining area. The restaurant is so small it’s about the size of my living room. Anyway…

They finally seat us at the bar, which is the least desirable place to sit, but we are obliged. We understood this to be a cocktail bar so we expected every single cocktail to be out of this world. Definitely not out of this world. In their book, they list different ingredients in being a liquor connoisseur myself I expect to taste every note. With every cocktail I was disappointed except with the cookie cutter. Which was spot on for the description.

After table was free no one walked over to ask us did we want to sit at a dining table. Once we placed our first round the female bartender/waitress brought us our drinks promptly. Then we were approached by a male bartender, who asked if we were helped and we said yes, but we would also like another round-AND get this-He looked me dead in my face and shook his head no, and walked away. I was really not trying to think about race, but after being sat in the BACK of the restaurant (yikes) and denied rounds of drinks, as a business owner, and someone who possesses the masters of business I was totally confused. Then, once the table opens up, they fulfill it with a so-called reservation when there was no way to place a reservation on their website, through Google, or on Instagram. It felt like a bold face lie.

We order the $20 charcuterie board which is really basic. It comes with summer sausage & different basic cheeses pickles and a fruit sauce. One cheese was very different and very nutty. Another was hot and delicious but Honestly, nothing was incredible and when you get a good look at your glass, you see they use huge ice cubes to fill up most of your glass so that they are barely giving you any alcohol, though they don’t spare on the spirits.

Anyway, so… Once we saw the table open up, we had to ask ourselves to be moved. They moved us. We commence to buy more drinks. Just give them the benefit of the doubt. Our final tab was $227, for two people. I’m not cheap by any means and I love me a good expensive cocktail but he hast to be worth it. They have a drink they recommend called the “cereal killer” ($25) in a taste NOTHING like it is described. I mean NOTHING. And the staff is kind of arrogant-but you are left wondering what is all the arrogance for? Lol.

Unfortunately, I probably will never go back, but this could be an incredible restaurant. They definitely need more room, better steps on how to handle overflow, they definitely need some different and better tasting cocktails, better entrées and appetizers. I’ll give this restaurant 2/10. We did not feel welcomed, and we did not feel as though we were honored guests, and the only reason why they changed their attitude and started treating us better and treated us to a custom cocktail is because I told him I was a food critic. No one should have to announce that they are doing a review on the restaurant in order to get better treatment. It really gave an old back in the day prejudice vibe. If you are black & I HATE to say this but id say stay FAR away from this place. That funny vibe you get was permeating the place.

Anyway, it was a good effort, had customer service been outstanding, but this place has a lot to learn. Very...

Went there for the first time last night, group of 4. The male making the drinks is very nice but that girl thats probably in her early 20s is insanely rude and disrespectful. We each ordered 2 drinks. After asking for a 3rd she simply said NO. I said excuse me? She said repeated no again. I said hey we’re all adults here if i am asking for a 3rd drink then you should bring it. She said i dont care how old you are with the worst attitude. I asked for the bill, our bill was $220 we tipped her $80 thinking hey maybe she’ll be nicer but NOPE! Not even a thank you. I said you’re welcome for the huge tip and she didnt even respond. Took the money and walked away. If i wanted to go be judged by a little girl then i would have NEVER gone to this establishment.

Go elsewhere if you want to have a good night because clearly they judge you and will cut you off after 2 drinks when we were the quietest table there. Absolute joke of a worker and she needs to be fired. $80 tip when she...

So much potential, yet very poorly executed.

The place is nice looking. Love the idea of more cocktail bars opening up in the area.

But just poorly executed.

To me a cocktail bar, focusing on solely cocktails, should be able to provide top-notch drinks.

My friends and I have a pretty simple drinking order; ketel one martini, extra dry, with olives.

First of all they didn’t have ketel one. They only had 2 vodka choices, both of which were brands I never heard of.

Also (see picture) they did not serve the martini in a martini glass, they put them in some kind of chalice.

They did bring olives, but they were garlic and jalapeño filled. Would also have been nice, to have been made aware that these were the olives they had.

The table we sat at was wobbly, but of course that is fixable.

Overall terrible experience. Was so excited to try it out, but until they get the basics down, won’t even consider going there...