The Bank Bistro — Restaurant in Washington

If you haven’t been to downtown Washington NC, you should. The city has done a lot of work to revitalize this area and it’s working. We had never tried The Bank Bistro so we thought we’d go make a withdrawal 🤣. The atmosphere was pleasant. Conversation was easy as the noise level inside was low. We were sat at a table overlooking the street. You could still feel and see some of the remnants of the old bank. Very nice. We don’t normally eat the bread offered prior to the meal. Simply trying to cut carbs and calories. The waitress sat it down before I could object so I thought what the heck I’ll have a piece. I slathered on some of the butter and took a bit. OMG, the butter was homemade honey butter. We ended up devouring that order and requested a second. And yea, the second was gone by the end of the night. So much for cutting cals and carbs!! My entrée was the blackened ribeye. My wife’s, the salmon and scallops. When I order a steak, I want it thick. I’m so disappointed when I get a steak and it comes out like 3/8 to 1/2” thick. They should call that lunch meat ribeye! How can you keep a steak that thin moist? You can’t! When my steak came out I was so happy to see this thing was thick, and big! Cooked to absolute perfection. Topped with a blue cheese sauce and crispy onions. This thing was a steak lovers dream come true!! It was moist, flavorful, and tender. What more could you ask for? Normally I end up finishing my wife’s plate and I can comment on hers too but I hurt myself eating this steak. I couldn’t stop. I’m thinking maybe I should start a support group for people like myself addicted to steak. SEA, steaks eaters anonymous. I can see it now, a bunch of big bellied men sitting around in a circle with grease dripping off their chins, “I don’t know what happened, I just couldn’t stop”. Service was top notch too. Our waitress was very knowledgeable of the menu and gave her personal recommendations when asked. Our glasses never went empty and we didn’t have to wait forever for the bill. Outstanding! Cost? I would consider The Bank Bistro fine dining. For fine dining you’re going to pay extra. I don’t mind paying extra as long as the atmosphere, food and service are all “fine” also. No complaints. Just know, you’re going to pay more than you would at let’s say Outback. Overall, we loved it. I would highly recommend The...

My husband and I were recently in Washington for a weekend trip and were really looking forward to our dinner at The Bank Bistro. We talked to numerous locals who raved about the food and the service, unfortunately, neither lived up to those expectations.

The evening started out well, seated about 5 minutes before our reservation, the wait staff was attentive with our drinks and bread, and even substituted a new bottle of wine for one that the cork had broken in half when they tried to uncork the bottle. The dining experience was wonderful, up until we got our entrees. We both ordered the special, Filet Oscar, medium, and when they were finally brought to our table, 20 minutes after our soup and salad, my steak was medium rare, my husband's steak, was raw. I was ok with eating my steak, but husband could not eat a raw steak. We had to ask another wait staff to find our server, who was now serving a large party, to send the the steak back. The second steak came back and this one was rare to raw, again. Again, we could not find our server to let them know about the second steak, but another server did notice that we were not happy and my husband showed her the second steak. Finally our server came back, took our plates and said that they would comp my husband's steak and quickly brought us our check. I'm not sure if they were embarrassed over the meal or more concerned with the tip that they were going to get from the larger party.

This was a busy Friday night at the height of dinner hour, but that is still no excuse to not properly cook not one, but three steaks, especially when it is the evening special. What we thought would be a well deserved evening out, turned into a disappointing...

The food and the service were great. The drinks tended to be on the strong side so if you like the mixers as much as the alcohol, you may not like the drinks. However, if you want the alcohol more than the mixer, this is definitely the place. Do not come here if you don't have a lot of time. This is not a standard quick in and out restaurant like a Chili's. You come here when you are out on a nice evening. We were there for over an hour and a half and there were people still there from before we got there. Again, it's not a fast place. And that's fine. You just need to know that going in. As for the food, we had the blue cheese artichoke dip. It was phenomenal. I don't even like blue cheese or artichokes and I couldn't stop eating this stuff. They use a deep fried Italian bread as the item to dip and that was unbelievably great. I ordered the filet and it was excellent My wife got the pork chop and it was really good. For my drink I got the old fashioned. You could taste the bourbon, but not the cherry and orange flavorings that were supposed to be mixed with it. As I said above, if you like the drink strong, you'll like it.

The only drawback/negative I could give is that if you want a quiet evening, this is not the place for that. You are in an old bank here. It's basically one room, everybody close together including those at the bar, with no sound reduction. The walls are concrete so every sound just bounces around. It is very loud. You can sit outside though if you want. The drink, a Coke, the appetizer and the two entrees came to about $125. All in all a great restaurant. Make a reservation if you can or you may not get in. We didn't have one but we got lucky as they had...