Freelance Cafe & Wine Bar — Restaurant in Town of Orangetown

Wow!!!! Unfortunately in a negative way…!!!! What a disappointment!!! Let’s start saying this place was not even busy/empty when we came here so no excuses for the lousy service…. These are just a few negative details of a badly dinner experience that we had in this “Restaurant “…so…….we were a party of 2 and we decided to have a little tasting experience of the menu items ordering a few different dishes from it…🤕….Steak overcooked and foul taste of the side dish that was going with it…..(spinach)…..the Octopus dish was undercooked and chewy , Tuna tartare good flavor but then It was served with their homemade “stale” potato chips??? …What a disappointment/shame….that completely ruined the dish…… The sauce from the Escargot dish over-seasoned and extremely salty,….the simple green beans with my Short-rib dish literally “raw”/undercooked, and I could go on and on, but at that point I tried to explained this few issues with the food to some “waiter” that unfortunately the food quality was totally subpar ….by the way very disappointing “service”as well ( if there was any)….and I guess they didn’t like my honesty and humble criticism because when I tried to flag out some other “gentleman “ in order to pay the bill (anyways we were mostly ignored the rest of the evening ) …this guy literally told me to “walk away “!!! ??? Nobody even asked us once how the food was/ everything was what so ever, the entire evening….. This is how they run their business…/taking care of customers….? What a shame!!! Back in time… This Restaurant used to be a GREAT place to go to have a wonderful Food experience now with the “New Management “ they erased completely that reputation…. I wished I could have given 0 Stars ….they don’t...

Let’s start with the food. It’s bad. Really bad. The onion soup tasted burnt. The butternut squash soup was inedible. The beet salad was terrible. The entrees were bad. The only thing that was good were the mussels. Next the service. The service, was terrible. The waiter was impatient and seemed generally annoyed to be taking our order. He even rolled his eyes once at me when I decided to to remove something from the original order. We were forced to order both the first course and entree at the same time. The waiter claimed he had to take the order for everything at once. Of course it’s not surprising that he couldn’t care less about the service since they automatically take 22% tip! 22%! I am personally against automatic tip. Tips are supposed to be the customer’s way of saying that we enjoyed the service. If we’re being forced to tip, why should anyone make an effort. If you are automatically tipping, take 18%. Leave something up to the customer. I mean 22%?!? What the heck? We weren’t even such a large party. Finally the over all atmosphere. The restaurant has a door that stays open half the time, until someone bothers closing it. It let’s cold windy air into the restaurant so it’s feels like sitting outside. It really isn’t that hard to make a self closing door. For the life of me I don’t understand how the reviews for this place are so high. We will not be...

I will begin by saying I have NEVER written a negative review. I decided to give myself some time before doing so and was even more upset today. My husband and I and friends had dinner last night at Freelance Cafe. I was a frequent diner at Freelance Cafe with its previous owner. With new ownership and subsequent covid pandemic, I had only recently returned to Freelance to dine. I was thrilled to find that the food was still terrific and raved about the restaurant to my friends. Over the past months, I have dined several times at Freelance. I have a respiratory condition so each time I requested and was able to sit at a table that was more isolated. I attempted to do this again last night (requesting this exact table on Open Table) and upon arriving at the restaurant was told the table was reserved for someone else. I was trying to clarify with the maitre d’ that perhaps the table was reserved for us when he abruptly cut me off and ushered us to the table I had requested. His rudeness and impatience continued throughout our dinner as he doubled as our waiter. On a side note, we were with very close friends, one of whom had been gravely ill recently and we were celebrating her improvement. I will say that the food was delicious as usual, but we will not return because of the arrogance and hostility of...