Brandy Library

Because my cousin and I tried to go in the girls' room together to put make-up on and talk privately, we were stopped and told "one at a time." So my cousin went in alone and I waited outside. The minute my cousin exited the ladies room, the male maitre'd literally barged into the ladies room to check it top to bottom (as if suspicious that my cousin had been in there by herself doing something unseemly). Next, my cousin and I were standing in the foyer outside the bathrooms, and there was nobody there, nobody coming and going, so we were not blocking anyone. And we were talking quietly. The maitre'd came back over and told us we were not allowed to be standing up, we had to go sit back down. When we protested that we were just talking privately for a moment, he said "if you don't like it, you can go somewhere else." . . . .We went back to the table to join our group, who told us that in the time we had been away from the table, they had been reprimanded twice for talking too loud. (n.b.: we are not rednecks, we are a group of 40-something NYC professionals and Londoners). We were remarking on this when the Maitre'd came back over to announce (again) that if we didn't like it, we could just leave.



So we left and we will NEVER go back there again. I have been to bars all over NYC, to London, to Paris, to Cairo, to Rome, to Amsterdam, to Montreal, etc., etc. and I have NEVER been treated so shabbily.

If you go to this place without reading any reviews then I will let you off the hook. If you read the negative reviews and still go then you are a fool. The best thing this place has is their website. I looked at it, looked forward to a night out meeting international friends at a very classy relaxed atmosphere with jazz music and a fireplace. Photos on the site look beautiful. This is going to be a great Friday night! Well an extremely rude maitre d has the hardest time finding our reservation on a single sheet of paper. We get seated by the fireplace which is actually a Sterno can sitting in a fake firebox. Our group gathers in three waves and the head count is 7. Apparently this is the magic number that set off the prison guards. A manager stood next to our group asking us to keep it down???? Keep what down we are all leaning in speaking quietly over a cocktail table. The only way to be quieter would be to text the person next to you. If you order a drink the wait is easily 20 minutes in a half filled room. The manager then told my wife the bar does not allow standing. That's right no standing. Get a seat and be quiet. That's what I have right now, a quiet seat in my own house. So why go out and spend hundreds of dollars to be rudely insulted all night then be asked to leave and never come back. By the way the walls are cheap stained plywood that happed to have back lite bottles on them. Low budget stuff when you see all this up close. Photographs well but your not fooling a trained eye. If you want the old world oak room feel with would class wood interiors, remember you're in NYC and there are a zillion hotel bars with that look. This place was a bad version of make believe with a make believe attitude, the prices where not make believe.