BUDDY'S DC — Restaurant in Washington

What started off as a nice cocktail and a friendly (who I assume was the owner) and staff, turned sour by off duty employees and over-served patrons. The food was decent, certainly well priced. Crab crostini was good for the price, fried chicken pieces were good, could use a little more flavor and less char. Short rib burger was awesome but we asked for no pickle and it was on there. We didn’t send it back despite hating pickles and honestly the taste shined.

Cocktails were decent, well curated and the bartender alerted us to a missing ingredient instead of subbing it. Good on her, and the replacement was decent.

My advice to the owner, maybe hire some security or have some rules in place to keep the rowdiness down? I get less rowdy vibes from the dive bars in Columbia Heights. Plus there were only like 10 people in there, on a Sunday!

At the end, a patron (and/or employee) was complaining about his bill and yelling at the bartenders. I would have stopped that right away as the owner or manager. There was a lot of uncomfortable vibes and chaos, and if you don’t want to have that, you have to act and make moves to correct it.

This place has potential. I hope it gets there, and I’m being...

This place has a lot of potential! High staff to customer ratio, but Vito (sp?) seemed to be working his butt off while everyone else working there kind of chatted with friends. We were 1 of only 3 tables occupied but it took 15 minutes for someone to come over and our order has to be taken 2x.

Wine down Wednesdays is $25 bottles of house wine - a steal!

Ordered the catfish bites (pretty good but small for $16), fried pickles (again fine) and shrimp patty (were given collards instead). NBD about the wrong item, stuff gets mixed up but we were charged for the random wrong item.

I also have zero problem with service charges built in to pay fair wages. HOWEVER - DC law requires this be posted “predominantly, clearly, and accurately disclosed to diners before diners place an order.” It's not. It's not on the website, the menus, and servers don't tell you. One small sign in the back of the bar that you won't see if you're at a table or outside. I encourage Buddys to be upfront about this and follow the OAG as it's becoming commonplace in many restaurants. Customers just want to know...

Deceptive pricing, bad food, and short pours.

Went to watch a game with some friends the other night at Buddy’s. This is one of those dc restaurants where the price on the menu is not the actual price. There was a 20% service charge on top of everything which I find insulting as a customer. Just increase the damn price on the menu if you need to keep up with inflation.

In addition, the beers they served us outside were tiny. They came in small plastic cups that I think were supposed to be for water. Some patrons got regular pint glasses while some folks got these baby cups. Wound up paying over $9 for a Miller light (before tip) which might be more expensive than ballpark prices per volume but I digress.

The staff was good but the jerk wings that came out were burnt, charred and dry. The sauce that came with it was tasty though.

I think a 2 star rating is generous given my experience which I’m glad I won’t have again because I’m...