"We visited Inside Park during the busy holiday season, yet the place was only half full—an unusual sight for NYC, often indicating that something is wrong. When it came to service, our waiter completely vanished throughout our meal, and it wasn't because the restaurant was packed; there were only 5 or 6 tables occupied. We had to actually get up and ask for more drinks and bread ourselves, and when we approached the bar to request more water, we found our waiter chatting with the bartender.
When I asked about the soup, the waiter informed me that they didn’t have any that day—what restaurant in NYC during winter doesn’t offer soup? He then suggested a dish that resembled a bean soup, but when I expressed interest, he said it was also unavailable. It just felt odd. We asked for bread, and the waiter looked at us as if it were an unusual request. Finally, just as we were finishing our meal, the bread arrived—three tiny pieces of toast.
To make matters worse, I noticed a $3 charge for the bread on the bill. When we called the manager over (once again, we couldn’t find our waiter), he apologized and said that bread isn’t typically included with the meal but agreed to remove the charge. It felt like I had stepped back to the 1980s when restaurants used to charge for water and bread.
The food itself was actually quite good, but almost every other aspect of the experience felt off. These issues seemed so easily fixable."
