Lobby Lounge – Hilton New York

The workshop hall is wonderful for large groups and big gatherings. Came here for workshops and so far so good the breakfast is great and I expect the lunch to be even better. The way the day is going, yes my expectations are pretty much on target. I’ve read some of the other reviews and I see many negative things but I have to say, I like this place.

I should have tried the other bar. However, it was serving food as the main restaurant was closed, so I left it alone. So, I tried this place a few times. Drink the first night was so good. Not so good the other nights. Service was poor. Drinks expensive. But, there are TV’s and it is right there. Wish there was other options, but, there is. I should have taken it.

The only reason I am giving this place 4 stars is because of FRANK and their seasonal cocktails. Frank is my idol. Frank will get you laid. Frank is witty and Frank is awesome. Frank will take great care of you. If Frank is not at the lobby lounge, go to the bridges bar on the other side of the walkway to the elevators. Frank will be there.
I also recommend the PUMPKIN MARTINI. Wowzas. I love this thing. It tastes like a cool pumpkin latte, but it gets you white girl wasted at the last drop, maybe even sooner. Their drinks are strong and decently priced. I want more of it. I may even go back to NYC just for it. Facetious I am not. The drinks here are beyond worth the visit. If this place even offered their cocktails elsewhere, they’d be making bank. I smell entrepreneurial-​ness in the air.
The beer selection is pretty week. Mostly domestic beers and the Brooklyn lager. Meh. Don’t come here for beer. It’s overpriced and why waste your hard earned $$$ on liquid fillers.

This place has the worst service ever. No acknowledgement or any kind of nice workers. Needless to say we didn’t stay for drinks or food.

A big NO. Overpriced with sub-​substandard fare. The drinks are nothing special and snacks/​food is priced far too high to be bad enough to leave more on the ate than is consumed. I wouldn’t be opposed to having a drink here for mere convenience, but I would never bother to order anything to eat.

Two stars because they gave me a dish of gratis salt and vinegar kettle chips. Yum!
Dinnertime on a Saturday, it took a while for the bartender to talk to me, which it shouldn’t have, because there were only a handful of people at the bar. I ordered a Brooklyn Lager, which she poured out of the Sam Adams tap. I almost said something, but I was just killing a little time before I caught my cab to JFK, so I shrugged it off (couldn’t bring myself to waste an entire beer for a repour; goes against my beer-​loving ethics). And the beer didn’t really taste like a Sam Adams (although I more often drink Sam Adams Light than the standard Boston Lager), so it’s possible they had their taps mixed up. If that’s the case, she should’ve said something to keep me from fretting as I watched her pour.
Anyway, yeah, like others have said, the bartender had no personality. Seems neither happy nor sad to be there, just completely and utterly apathetic. She gave me my bill immediately, which made me feel like I wasn’t welcome to sit there, not that I was going to, but I would have preferred to have had the option.
All of the TVs above the bar were turned off. Ugh. So I just had to stare into space as I drank my (probably-​not-​a) Brooklyn Lager. Lame.

Slow service and no personality. Combine that with overpriced drinks (e.g., a small draft Budweiser was $ 11+) and you have a recipe for never returning there.

Unless you have really deep pockets AND plan to be drunk before you order dinner, skip the Hilton’s lounge.
Now I don’t ask much when I travel alone on business. A nice, reasonably priced bar, with some decent food options would be good. Is that too much to ask?
Stay away from the Lobby Lounge. Grab a beer from the mini bar and get a hot dog from a street vendor instead. This place is awful and awfully expensive. Both the food and the bill make you want to throw up!
I went downstairs just to unwind after a busy day. When I saw the menu, I should have turned around right then and there. Choices — burger, chicken sandwich and pizza — none for less than $ 18.
OK, I’ll chance it and get the pizza. Strangely, the pizza arrived on a plate shaped in such a manner that all of the grease pooled at the center, leaving an oil slick… no, oil pool… at the center of the plate. And for 18 bucks!
I patted the pizza down with my napkin, but what I really needed was a turkey baster to soak up all that oil.
Overall, $ 52 tab for an oil soaked pizza and a couple glasses of bad wine. For the amount of business this hotel does, they need to make this place over or get rid of it.

I know it’s kind of weird to review the lobby lounge and Bridges Bar in the Hilton New York, but they are listed on the website as entities, and since they are both open to more than just the guests of the hotel, why not?
The funniest thing is when me and Dave P. went here, we were actually looking for Bridges Bar. I just saw the first bar right in the lobby and I was like, this doesn’t look like the one I saw before, oh well it’s a bar.
When I went to go to the bathroom, and I passed by Bridges Bar on the other side of the elevators, I was pretty pissed.
Anyhew, this lobby lounge is basically an airport lounge; you’re right in the open and there’s just a lot of traffic going by. A couple of tvs adds to the lame factor; and of course, a Guinness was 7.50 and then tax on top of that. Not getting a drink here ever again. The guy didn’t even pour the Guinness remotely right. I just felt bad for the waitstaff. This was, as Dave said, «the kiddie bar» versus Bridges which was for the adults. When you’re trying to drink and you see a kid at the table behind you drinking a cranberry juice, you might want to try a change of atmosphere.