Kitty Bradshaw reviews Restaurant: Cafeteria Chelsea NYC

Cafeteria

Blah, Blah, and Blah… The first time I was introduced to Cafeteria Restaurant was last Sunday, April 19 around 2am.  Prior to arrival,  I took the word “Cafeteria” literally, but it was quite the opposite.  It was your typical restaurant… actually it reminded me of the Citigroup employee lounge, only with dim lights.  Neither bad nor good… it’s just if you work in Manhattan with an employee lounge, then you have seen Cafeteria’s decor.

The server was standard… what got to me was our initial server’s shift was over close to the end of our meal.  When the check came out, it had all sorts of errors on it that the new server couldn’t change.  So, he kept having to go back and track the old server down to ask him.

The food, (my food to be exact) was horrible!  Everyone in my party had similar, if not worse stories to tell, but I will only speak on my plate.  I am a big fan of left overs… I like to take them home and warm them up for lunch at work (How I survive in these recession times, lolll).  I was so disgusted… more than half the meal went into the trash.  I had the steak salad, and truffle grits on the side.  In my opinion these two dishes are so simple… how can you mess them up?!  The grits came out cold, and bland… I had to keep dousing my cold grits w/ salt and pepper.  The food was on the level of Senior Retirement Home… Cafeteria is very Blood Pressure Friendly! lolll

The steak was not fresh… it tasted like they pre-cooked the steak early in the week and warmed it over and slung it on a bed of greens. ( *Note: I was charged a $1.25 to change out my salad dressing.  The server failed to tell me if exchange one dressing instead of another you get charged… another surprise on our bill.)

The only good thing on the table that was worth eating was the Calamari.. go figure?!

So I came home, and Twittered about Cafeteria… low and behold they have a Twitter Account, who reached out to me and told me I should give Cafeteria a 2nd chance.  They recommended I try the Chicken and Waffles or the Pancakes… so I said “umm ok, but I will officially review the spot the 2nd go round.”

@KittyBradshaw: 2. Cafeteria in Chelsea- umm ok I didnt like the food so much, but the Calamari and Dry Martinis are on point!

@CAFETERIAnyc: Come back in & try our Chicken&Waffles or our Ricotta Pancakes for breakfast (served ’til 5). I promise they wont disappoint!

So we went again Saturday night at around 11p.m. *insert climatic music here*

We had the worst server known to the restaurant industry!  He was sooooooooo slow, and could not seem to get the order right to save the King!  He missed the course on “taking the customers drink order first, then giving the customer a moment to review the menu for order, and finally coming back and taking the dinner order”.

He took sooooo long to come and take our drink order, he felt as if by the time he got to our table we should have been prepared to place the drink and meal orders at the same time.  The problem here is, some of our group thought he was just taking the drink and appetizer orders, and some thought he was taking the meal orders.  Not once did he put 2 and 2 together, and mention to the group as a whole what type of orders were being placed.  So, when he started coming back with drinks and appetizers for half the table… when the other half wanted to place entrée orders he got visibly annoyed with us.

AGAIN…. the food took EXTREMELY too long to come out!  It took them an hour to make a side of bacon for one of my friends.  While everyone was eating their meals, he sat there waiting on his side of bacon.  That’s all he ordered was bacon; no lettuce, no bread… he just had a taste for bacon!  It took 1 hour and 45 minutes from the time he walked in to get a side of bacon.  That proves my theory that the food is not fresh… they warm it up. If it was fresh, it wouldn’t take so long to make bacon.

The straw that broke the camels back was while we were waiting on our food (that took extremely long)… we turn around and look out the window and see our server smoking a cigarette outside mingling with the people waiting to get in.  One of the members of our group went outside to ask him how much longer would it take to get our drinks?!  He put his cigarette out and came in immediately for our drinks.

*sighs*

I could go on and on with this story but it only gets worse.  The only good thing about “Cafeteria” is the fine ass security guard with the dreads… Ohhh yea I wanted to Hump him!    He is so feisty, intense, direct and FINE all in the same sentence.  We couldn’t tell if he was gay or straight… but he definitely had some build up! lmaooooo  Unfortunately he is not enough to make me want to come back…

I give Cafeteria grade:  F!!!!!

• 119 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10011
  at 17th St.  See Map | Subway Directions
• 212-414-1717