Dirty Habit — Restaurant in San Francisco

This feedback is regarding their events department. We had dinner here and it was actually an enjoyable experience with great restaurant staff. Five stars there but 1 star for employing the following person.

TL;DR Very unprofessional events manager. Do not recommend holding an event here. Zero stars here.

My fiancee and I first contacted Dirty Habit after looking into potential venues for our wedding reception. After looking through the restaurant menu, Yelp reviews, and pictures, we really fell in love with what the restaurant had to offer. Our initial email reached their Catering Sales Coordinator. Her email was very delightful and gave us a lot of information with regards to what our options were. She also included a very useful PDF with enough information to make our decision!

From that point onward, my point of contact for the restaurant was their Catering Sales Manager, Jennifer Gomez. I reached out to Jennifer with a few questions and provided more information regarding our event. I also requested a quote on their patio since we really liked the photos they provided. In the initial email we received, there were four pictures. I had explicitly asked about potentially holding the event on their patio, which was the second picture. When Jennifer finally responded two days later, she gave us information for the wrong space (she referenced the fourth picture instead of the second like I had requested). I responded almost immediately that I actually wanted information for the second picture. This was January 5th.

Fast forward to January 13th. I reached out since I hadn’t heard back. No response.

Fast forward to January 17th. I reached out AGAIN and told her that my fiancee and I had decided to move forward…despite not having had any communication with Jennifer since the 5th. She finally responded the next day and requested a phone call.

We spoke on the 19th, going over details about the event. She seemed delightful. Seemed. I asked all the questions I had and she gave answers, except for pricing. Sure, that’s fine. At the end of our call, she told me that she was going to go back and gather the quotes for us regarding the spaces as well as give us different options.

Fast forward to January 31st. Two emails, one voicemail, once message left with the Catering Sales Coordinator (I actually got through this ONE time), and several unanswered phone calls later. Jennifer FINALLY responded via email. She apologized for the delay since she was at their annual company sales retreat (which ran from Monday 1/29 to Tuesday 1/30).

She apologized for the delay for being OOO this week...

But not for her lack of responses prior to her OOO.

In her email, she told us that they wouldn’t be able to accommodate a lunch on their patio past 3pm. Instead, she told us if we SHIFT our lunch to 12pm to 3pm they would be able to accommodate us, despite my FIRST email to their restaurant telling them that our ceremony ends at 2pm. This final email from her was so appalling and lacking of any sort of sincerity or professionalism that we made our decision right then and there. Needless to say, we went with...

Drinks here are legitimately excellent. Food is pretty darn tasty as well. Very solid (but hidden!) spot and definitely somewhere I can see revisiting.

Drinks in order of favoriteness (fyi, I like bitter, smokey, and spicy flavors). Chucucabra: Okay so I found out a year ago that mezcal + orange + cinnamon is one of the most wonderous combinations in the planet. This drink executes on that with a hint of spice. There's also some bitter and smoke at the end of the palate. So uh yeah... I love this drink.

Rum for your life: Crowd-pleaser. Really well balanced. Has a nice light cardamom spice and then really soft, slightly sweet aftertaste.

East India Negroni: Tastes actually more like an old fashioned to me (but a delicious one!). It hits you with rum flavors and there's bitterness at the end.

Canary: Vanilla and saffron. Also some sour lemon flavors.

Stonewall Jackson: Old fashioned with bitter dark chocolate taste

Barrel aged Bijou: Delivers on the promise - it tastes like an herbal wooden barrel. If you enjoy gin (and I do), this is fantastic.

In hindsight: This is basically a really good negroni. But I didn't really think it was a very special drink.

Navy Grog: It looks like a girly drink - there is a slice of orange and a silly little umbrella stuck in - but it's actually quite manly tasting. Basically it tastes like rum. There's other stuff in it to slightly mask the alcoholic taste, but it's called "navy grog" for a reason.

Food (also in order of favorites): Lamb bao: I loooove the lamb instead of using pork belly. It's got a crispy texture and tastes really good sandwiched between the soft fluffy bao. Chicken wings: Perfect. Crunchy thick battered skin smothered in chili sauce. Can't go wrong. Squash toast: Falls more on sweet than savory but quite good. Two small sweet rye breads with maple and some sour huckleberries on it.

We ordered a lot of other food but those were the top three. Also honestly... the only ones I...

Super swanky bar with good food and drinks but service that leaves something to be desired.

A girlfriend and I stopped by Dirty Habit on a Wednesday evening for drinks. They were supposedly full with reservations but there was one open cocktail table outside. We took it, though as we talked through the area, it certainly didn't look full. The outside was incredibly cute though, with a firepit running through the center of it and a variety of tables/couch seating around.

We both ordered cocktails. She got the B-String and I got the Cream of the Crop. Hers tasted boozy, with a banana after taste. She really liked it. Mine was good, very different and interesting. Incredibly dark and smoky with the mezcal but a little creamy from the coconut milk. The candied ginger on top was a nice touch. I'd recommend, though I don't know that you can really drink more than one given the strong flavors. For a second drink I had a glass of Chianti, which was typical for Chianti, and she had the All Hopped Up, which was very light and refreshing. I'd definitely recommend it.

We also ordered the chicken wings. There were 6 huge wings in our order covered with jalapeños and red chili peppers. The jalapeños had a really nice kick to them that was lacking in the red peppers and wings themselves, but for those with less spice tolerance, the sweetness of the wings is a nice offset to the spice of the peppers. I adore spice though, and could have used more on the actual wings. Despite that, they were delicious, and filling!

I'll definitely come back here, I'd love to try more of their food, but the drinks aren't cheap ($13/cocktails) so it's more of a one drink type of...