The Handsome Cab — Restaurant in York

Ok - so my initial review for the Handsome Cab will be brief...we ate here for small plates and drinks - so to be fair will keep this to what I know at the time.

The place is beautiful - and very relaxing with a piano player when we were here on a Saturday evening which was very nice.

My initial impression of the huge windows that opened onto the sidewalk was impressed - until I had to sit and watch a bevy of Yorkers who would be passing by, standing and leaning in the windows, talking to friends who happened to be dining around us - which seemed to happen all evening long.

Our service was not good. The prices are high - there is an air of undeserved pretension. Handsome Cab is not quite ready for prime time. They must step up their service offering. You simply cannot serve the seemingly high quality of food and drinks here with wait staff that is on loan from the local Taco Bell.

I do hope the service will improve in time. Our waitress had no idea what was in their own signature cocktails - when asked she said she would find out from the bartender, in the mean time we had 2 rounds of drinks that we were familiar with while we were waiting for the description of several others - when the waitress returned to serve the 2nd round of drinks, I asked her what was in the other cocktails - she actually had the nerve to say to me that things were so hectic that she hadn't even seen a bartender all evening. Made me wonder how she was serving us drinks if she hadn't seen a bartender.

We ordered a Charcuterie - mixed combo cheese board and also a Beef Carpaccio appetizer. When the waitress brought the combo board, we had questions as to what was on it - and she simply told us she had no idea, laughed and left. Fortunately we were able to figure most of it out, there was an Irish or Welsh cheddar, goat cheese, Boursin, parmesan, and brie - not necessarily very spectacular, the meats and accouterments were appropriate.

The Beef Carpaccio looked like a work of art - and it was very good, it was small however, really not a proper size to be shared - 5 small pieces I believe, really more of a taste than anything - very disappointing.

We really came here to eat and drink more - but were underwhelmed, the service was honestly just terrible - really just doesn't feel like a good value for the money right now. Everything we saw is a great indicator that this place has the foundations to be really good - but it needs some tweaking and staff...

First, this should definitely be a $$$ not $$. The ambiance was nice and the piano player was EXCELLENT. Played Aerosmith, Queen, songs from Titanic and A Star is born. Nice variety. It was a 3 hour meal. It took 20 minutes to get our cocktails, they ranged from $10 to $13. You had to beg for another and then they were forgotten and you had to remind the fella. Very friendly, knowledgeable. Just not attentive and very forgetful. At least 45 minutes to get appetizers, and an hour for the entrees. And the place cleared out on a Saturday night around 7 (our res was 6:15). We weren’t crazy about the food. The bang bang shrimp was wonderful. The crab dip tasted like fishy, salty claw meat. Not creamy or cheesy. There were 6 of us and we left some in the dish. Small portion and $18 so leaving some is saying something! The mushroom appetizer was good. The French Dip was horrible. It was shredded steak, very stingy portion, with a lump of unmelted pimento cheese. The 3 we ordered looked like they had been sitting for a while. The top roll was nice, crusty, the onions were cooked just right, the bottom roll was a soggy mess. The au jus was a glob of a thick mustardy like sauce. The strawberry salad with goat cheese was good. The brussels and carrots were to die for! The peanut butter pie looked like an 8th of a regular size pie. Smallest dessert I remember getting in a restaurant. The presentation of the dessert was nice but kind of a long rectangle plate with a small slice of pie, lots of chocolate syrup. A squirt of whipped cream with a strawberry halved on it. Very disappointed and very expensive for the quality. Oh…..and I brought cash because there is s 3% fee passed on if you use a credit card, but the fee was already added to my receipt. I asked why and the waiter said they take it off if you pay cash. If I wasn’t looking for it , I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Nice for a cocktail with classy piano playing but I doubt we will go back even though we often enjoy a venue...

I visited your restaurant on Tuesday night with my daughter-in-law. We were there to celebrate national drink wine day. We saw that you had an event and it sounded very interesting. But clearly you weren't prepared at all. We were seated and greeted by a mumbling server, and realized that she was asking if we wanted water.  We asked for your tasting Tuesday menu so that we could see all of the menus before we decided what to order. After the second time asking for the tasting menu she expected us to order immediately. I asked for another moment please, to which we got a scowling face. After 40 minutes of sitting there with only water we tried to flag our server so that we could order. At that point the host walk over and said he would take our order. When we asked what we did wrong he repeated that he would take our order. At that point I didn't feel comfortable staying at all so we walked out. Within 10 minutes, including walking the block and a half to White Rose we had drinks and an appetizer.

It's very sad that the thoughts that came to mind were whether she was ignoring us because I asked for a menu that was items for $5.55,  was I dressed appropriately, or am I in the right tax bracket to be here? VERY uncomfortable to say the least.

In respnse - irregardless of the time frame, we were CLEARLY ignored. If you could see that she was "in the weeds" why wait until someone has sat that long to help? Having been a server and a restaurant manager for years, I could never have let one of my servers OR good paying customers suffer that long!

I felt very judged at that point; almost as if you wanted us to leave. I don't think visiting again will solve anything We were excited to try wine from your list,. It's too bad that that...