Strip House

12/21/09

Poor Service and a Crappy Attitude

by Grappa Corp at Citysearch

11 of us went to Striphouse for our Christmas Dinner which has been an annual event now for 15 years. We've been to many different steakhouses in the city, including DelFrisco's, Sparks, BLT Prime and Wolfgangs to name a few. Striphouse, by far, was the worst experience that we've encountered in those 15 years. It seemed everyone who worked there had an attitude and the service was very questionable. My order of a filet on the bone was mistakenly cut up and placed at the other end of the table and included as someone elses order. No apologies or acceptance of blame. In fact, they were annoyed that I didn't accept the fact that someone else ate my meal and seemed agitated that I still wanted a steak of my own. The main objective of the wait staff was to get us out and turn over the table. We even overheard a "manager type" person say that they needed our table. Which I guess explains why most of our party weren't asked what they wanted for dessert or didn't receive what they ordered. Our bill was $2,000 and we had no say in the tip as it's included on the bill for a party that large. We were also hit with a tip charge on the bill for the one round of drinks some of us had at the bar. We had transferred our bill from the bar to our table and one person in our party was told that the bar tenders work for tips, so he left a $20, but I guess leaving a $1.00 or so tip per drink was not enough as we were hit with another bar fee at the end of the night. Bottom line, you can do so much better at any of those other steakhouse that I mentioned. While you'll still pay a lot, the quality is very good and the staff treats you like like you're special. Striphouse needs an overhall in hospitality and a rehiring of staff that caters to the public and not feeds off of them.

• Pros: I know now to dine elsewhere
• Cons: Service and Staff Attitude was horrendous

11/22/09

flavorless steak, rude wait staff, lousy overall,

by jflorez1971 at Citysearch

we had reservations at 9 and got seated at 9:45. Once we sat down the waiter seemed to lack any sort of personality. the hostesses (2 of them) were initially nice but then at 9:30 when i started inquiring why we weren't being seated all of the sudden i became the bad guy. Finally at 9:45 we sat down. We ordered the "special" dry aged steak for two. how could you go wrong, right? To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. On top of this the waiter had a big chip on his shoulder. What i found interesting was that the couple next to us had the same experience. only there's was more negative. apparently the guy had asked the waiter for a wine recommendation only to have the waiter give him a look as if he were being bothered and say "i don't know". then just walked away. As we exited we walked by our tablemates, the guy was talking to the hostess and uttering the words "i'll never come back". well, this too is our sentiment. look, there are a lot of people that eat out once a year and have no idea what fine dining entails. i am not one of these people. i eat out just about every day. i work from home so this is an escape for me to get out of the apartment. I am also a big steak lover and i perhaps could have forgiven the rude service,late seating if the steak was decent. this was not the case. the next time you want a good steak, go to Lugers in brooklyn, go to Spark's in midtown. But whatever you do, spare yourself from this bastion of mediocrity.

• Pros: nice ambiance
• Cons: flavorless steak, rude waitstaff

10/18/09

worst service ever, was like a JOKE

by asako1999 at Citysearch

True story, from last night 10/17/2009.

1, Bitchy bartender who ignores order

2, Waiter brings wrong bottle, twice.

3, Sub manager, worst of all, worst of new york, RUDE as hell.

4, No sense of customer service of general manager,

We had reservation at 9:00, didn't get a table until 9:45. OK, it's NY, this place is supposedly a "hot spot".

We waited at the bar, ordered two drinks, and two waters. Drinks came right up, water, completely ignored, after 3 attempts, finally my boyfriend had to "yell" to get water.

We seated, 4 of us, ordered bottle of red wine. The waiter came back with bottle of white wine, as they showed the bottle, we told him that's not what we ordered. He came back with the bottle, which was not what we ordered. It was upgraded version of what we order. We confirmed that this is the $50 bottle we ordered. He had to go back to sub manager, he came back with "attitude", asking what made us think this is different from what we order. They are French, know about wine. It was actually better wine than $50 bottle we ordered, so we took it.

But they had to confirm with several people so wine did not come until our main course comes in. Yes, it took over 30 min to get a bottle of wine.

I ordered 10 oz of filet, two others ordered rib eye of 24 oz with bone. Mine came, pretty big size. Theirs, looked like they each got 5 oz. Bone was put on the side, should weight less than 4 oz. So, easy math. They should get about 10 oz of meat each, should be "about" the same size of my 10 oz filet.

It was SO obviously, we were curious to see what this is about, not angry, just asked the sub manager. This 30 something, short, white guy, said:

"Why would you split the rib-eye", meaning, you guys are so cheap you don't want to order one per person?

It DID not answer our question.

He also said, maybe mine was 14 oz by mistake, so I got "lucky". True, true story. So what are we complaining? that was his attitude. We got angry at that point, asked to General Manager to come.

He was, confused because such thing, even in crappy restaurant, should not happen.

He asked us, how they can make this up. At that point, my filet was cold, we just wanted to get he hell out of the restaurant, so there was no need for them to bring new dishes, or give us extra bottle,

We asked for check, after making sure not to charge my filet which I did not touch. Check came, charged for half of the crappy rib-eye, bottle of wine, and half of salad, half of appetizer, for the "ANGRY, unpleasant, most rude, non-appetizing experience" we still had to pay over $100. No tip, of course.

If you wanna waste money, give it to charity please, NOT go there, not to be "disrespected and treated as crap".

• Pros: NONE
• Cons: Worst service

07/10/09

Great Experience

by metslider at Citysearch

I organized a dinner to send one of my buddies off to India for a 2 year work stint. It was a last minute deal and we planned on 8-10 guys showing up. He wanted to do steak. We have all eaten at most of the top steak joints in NYC. I had never been to the Strip House but had heard good things from colleagues. I decided to make a reservation for 10 the day before. We were able to get that reservation and the girl on the phone was very nice. Later I started reading these reviews of how bad the service is. I could not have found that to be more from the truth. The host was very nice. We wound up with 8 people(I had called and changed the reservation to 8) The first table they seated us at was against the wall and a bit cramped for 8 big guys. They had no problem moving us to a table in the center of the room that let us spread out a bit more.

I also read that the service was rushed. We walked in at 7 for out 7pm reservation. We were missing one guy. They told us to take our time and just let them know when we wanted to be seated. After 15 min we told them we were ready and would wait for the last guy at the table. We waited another 30 min or so and were not rushed along to order at all. After the apps there was a nice waiting period before the steaks came. The staff was very attentive and very courteous. I imagine maybe people feel like if they spend a lot of money on dinner they need to have someone wipe their chin, I dont know, but I do know that these guys did a great job.

As far as the food goes we had the seafood platter for the table. I would say the shell fish was average. The scallops were amazingly good. We also had the foie gras which may have been the best I ever had. I ordered some bacon and the tomato and mozzarella for the table as well. I had the bacon and it was pretty good.

For the mains everyone had the bone in strip but one guy who ordered the lamb. The strips were slightly overcooked but not outrageous. I knew from others to order the steak rarer then you normally would elsewhere. The quality of the steak was great. It had a great taste and was not just a piece of meat with butter on it.

As for the corkage policy, we brought 2 bottles of wine and were charged $15 per cork. It was not an issue at all. We also ordered more wine after we finished our two bottles.

All in all a great experience. I would recommend trying this place.

• Pros: food, atmosphere, service
• Cons: price

02/08/09

What happened?

by hatsukoo at Citysearch

Judging from good bread, salad and sides, I would think this place wants to do good food. So why were their meat so tough and flavorless? Both strip steak and rib steak were not properly aged, and not seasoned. Their steak sauce was like ketchup. Their sweet chili sauce was like a sweat and sour sauce from cheap Chinese take out.. Was it just an off night? I wonder....

• Pros: everything except steak
• Cons: steak

01/28/09

Can't rest on past laurels..not in NYC

by Stesol at Citysearch

I once considered SH my go to NYC steak joint; they had the food, service, ambiance balance down pat. Don't know what happened, maybe their reflexive counter to a down economy is to tighten their revenue management but they are failing miserably.

Food quality is appreciably lower, kitchen hygenics are what I'd expect in a chain, not such as in a $300 + tab for two joint. Management is downright rude.

Everything is over salted, the doneness is one grade over what was ordered and they changed their corkage policy but have made no effort to note either this on their web site or when making a reservation. Yes I'm bitter: We had a bottle of $100+ champagne at the bar before dinner....when we were seated - late - and I placed a bottle of well aged bordeaux ( they have no such thing on their list) on the table, I was confronted by management who said they do not allow this any longer. He was rude and when I asked him where they noted that - I was ignored.....

Take your money where it is appreciated - Try Dylan Prime; they know what customer service means.

• Pros: Ambiance
• Cons: Customer Service/Food Quality for Money

01/26/09

Good steak, but the sides are a little off

by pfizzle at Citysearch

Came here for my girlfriend's birthday. Atmosphere was very nice and we were seated promptly. Ordered two filet mignons, one large and one smaller. The smaller one my girlfriend loved and was cooked perfectly. I enjoyed mine a lot but felt it was cooked more towards a medium than a medium-rare. I thought maybe it was due to the size of my steak. The fact that they give you a head of roasted garlic really made our steaks special and highly enjoyable. We'll definitely come back because of that and couldn't get enough of it.

We were given a free sample of butternut squash soup, which we didn't like very much and tasted exactly like butter. Coincidentally, we ordered the lobster bisque and it tasted exactly like the free sample we had just before! We didn't really enjoy it at all. The waiter noticed we left it alone and asked about it, but we didn't make a fuss. The potato romanoff that we ordered also tasted a lot like butter. I really think they just use TOO much butter in their sides. Our crab cakes though were excellent, as well as our side of green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. Service was very decent, our waiter explained the menu clearly and poured our glasses of wine regularly. Overall, great steak but I would definitely not come here for the sides again, or I'd try the others on the menu.

• Pros: Great steak!
• Cons: Too much butter in some sides

01/24/09

Pleasantly surprised

by vkitty414 at Citysearch

I took the man I've been seeing (who loves a good steak) here for his birthday on a Friday night. I had been agonizing over which steakhouse to pick - Luger was booked in advance so I couldn't get a table at a decent time; friends recommended Sparks, but in looking at pictures and reading about the history, it sounded too heavy on the Sopranos theme and not heavy enough on the romance (turns out he's eaten there already); then was thinking Mark Joseph downtown in the financial district (convenient for us both)... for which the reviews are all fantastic. So it came down to: Risk going to the Strip House (recent reviews sounded really bad) and have a good steak and good ambiance, or go to Mark Joseph and have a better steak but what appears to be more "Wall Street" crowd ambiance. I decided to go with Strip House. We had a 9:30 reservation. I had called twice to request a booth, but had been warned that it probably wouldn't happen. We had to wait about 40 minutes (even having a reservation), so we had a drink at the very crowded bar - stood talking and looking at the old pictures on the walls. We were seated at a little table at the end of a row... it's pretty tight but luckily we didn't hear our neighbor's conversations. He had the prime rib and loved it. I had the whitefin tuna... loved the peppercorn, didn't love the steamed veggie roll (so bland). We had the creamed spinach and the goose fat potato per the reviews on here - the spinach especially was good. Oh, and for an appetizer we had the sea scallop... that was EXCELLENT - we both loved it. For dessert we shared a monster profiterole. I thought it was a little crisp but the ice cream was really good. The service was very good... we spent about two hours total there and left stuffed and in a food coma. He says he loved it and that he'd definitely go back. I was happy given the reviews. One thing: they were supposed to write "happy birthday" on the dessert dish but didn't... hence the 3 stars.

• Pros: romantic red theme; food
• Cons: forgetful service

01/22/09

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

by chris0909 at Citysearch

I thought I would ignore all the bad reviews about the Strip House and experience it for myself, what a DISASTER.

The booking was for myself and 5 other business clients. Once we were shown to our cramp table & served our drinks the waiter lost balance of the tray & a whole bottle of cola was spilt down the back of one of my guests.

Two people had to send their steak back twice and in the end they gave up and did not eat at all. When we asked for the bill the manager ANDREW BARNETT came over and stated he was not going to charge for the two steaks not eaten, the soft drinks & 1 of the appetizers. He refused to pay for the dry cleaning or make any kind of good will gesture to my wet & sticky guest. RUDE, BAD MANGEMENT, SAVE YOURSELF A VERY BAD EXPERIENCE.

• Pros: was once a good steak house
• Cons: terrible management, no customer service, below average

01/01/09

Not what it used to be

by TheHappyFoodie at Citysearch

This place used to be our favorite steakhouse in New York, but has really slipped. The host/hostess sure don't know it, though: they conduct themselves with the smug rudeness of a restaurant that has the luxury of turning off good patrons. On New Year's Eve (maybe an off night?) the steak was good (not great), the apps (seafood, tomato salads) were very much below average (not fresh). We had a reservation, but they sat us at a tiny cocktail table where bar goers bumped into us as we struggled to find a place to fit side dishes. Not the kind of experience you'd expect from a big night out that ran us ~ $350 a couple (with good wine and tip). The only thing that made the astronomical tab less infuriating was the gracious waitstaff. Otherwise this place is off of our list.