Traffic Bar and Restaurant

Official INDIANA UNIVERSITY HOOSIERS BAR is now Durden in East Village.
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When a server doesn’t write down any of the order, it’s usually going to end well or terribly. Our experience was the latter. My order arrived in a very reasonable amount of time. A short while later, two entrees were delivered to my companions, but both were incorrect. A few minutes later, another server tried to deliver the same incorrect food to us again, perhaps hoping we’d change our minds.
Finally, the second entrée ordered arrives, with the wrong dressing, without the side, and with an ingredient requested to be left off. But we’re starving at this point, so we deal. The server comes back to ask my third friend what he ordered, a caprese sandwich, which has to be one of the simplest orders to make. Eventually, that comes out, approximately a half hour after my dinner came.
I will give a little credit, because they were able to make a cocktail that wasn’t listed on the menu, but that is negated by the check also taking forever to show up, even though I was sprawled across the table in defeat. The food is decent, but it was just a miserable experience.

I’m not entirely sure how a bar like this has survived in Hell’s Kitchen… or even New York for that matter. The service isn’t good, the food is over-​priced and pretty nasty (Cheese-​wiz Cheese Fries? Are you serious right now?) and the drinks from their drink menu flat out suck. They range from tasting like a Jolly-​Rancher to lemonade mixed with hand sanitizer.
Our bar tender Sean, who requested to be named in my Unilocal review by spelling out his name for me, seems to be a great guy. But a bar tender he isn’t. Forgetful of two drink orders, walking away to the computer and making us shout over the music to order food and being on his iPhone when we were trying to pay added up to just about the worst service I’ve had in the area. And the entire restaurant/​bar had about 7 people in it… so it’s not like he was busy.
I’ll not be back. I don’t care how good their happy hour prices are. And their deep fried mac and cheese isn’t as good as you’d hope it would be.

This is a New Years Eve review. The open bar cost us $ 80 each and included beer and top shelf liquor. There was a coat check and the bathrooms were clean. I went with a group of 20 friends and we had a table reserved. It wasn’t crowded and we were easily able to get up to the bar all night. The cover included an appetizer sampler but that was the only food included. Everything on the sampler was good except the chicken strips; I don’t think it was chicken. We could order them as many of them to our liking. I wish that we could have gotten more of a choice of food but for the price I guess that is what you could expect in manhattan. You could order more food but at an extra price. The music was good and we had enough room to dance to our desires. It was a good experience.

PRETTY SURE THEY STOLE MY CREDIT CARD NUMBER.
Came here to watch Patriots MNF. so excited to randomly find a patriots bar! I had 2 beers and forgot my credit card at the bar (after paying the bill). I was only in NY for the night, so I called the next day to have them tear it up, they said they would. Surprise, I now have $ 300 in charges from gas stations in northern CA. The only other places I had used my card in the past month were big chain stores and restaurants I know well.
hmm.
So, I guess if you really want to go here, either a) remember to take your credit card when you leave, or b) pay in cash.

For the few Patriots fans in NYC who want to watch a football game with others and not get harassed by Jets/​Giants fans, Traffic is a good place to meet up. There is plenty of room to stand and sit down unlike other popular places like Professor Thoms. I’ve been here a handful of times because this is the sports bar of choice for a NYC Patriots fan meetup group I’m a part of. In my experience, the food is not as awful as what other Unilocal reviews have said but then again my expectations are not high for a sports bar like this one. Service is questionable at best. When times are busy, our waitress has forgotten a few times to put in our food order but it gets resolved eventually. Expect food during a football game to come later than you expect. If you keep those things in mind, you’ll enjoy watching games here. Go Pats!

The food is terrible. I ordered the buttermilk chicken (an entrée) and the chicken is as big as my 3 fingers (50% of it was bone).
And I did not know its a Patriots bar. I went there to watch the Giants v.s. Eagles game and were stuck with a tiny little screen.
The two stars were for the great waiter we had. I left my phone there and he tried to chase me down the street to give it back to me.

First when we arrived they seemed confused and said that they did not have our reservation for 15 ready so we were a little annoyed with that. They did however sit us at the bar and let us have complimentary drinks on the house which was nice.
I personally was a little disappointed in the mac and cheese bite appetizer. For my entrée I ordered the chicken with prosciutto however they told me they were out of it so that was a bit disappointing. The rest of the group however was raving about their food. So I will give it another shot while I’m in the area.
Cool contemporary atmosphere !

I feel really bad for my server. She tried hard but … the place kept messing up my order.
… their signature drinks are horrible.
Our waitress checked up on us a lot. I liked it. She wanted to keep us topped off but… I refused to order after having so many of my beers served… NOT cold.
This place needs to shape up, fast.

My friends and I went here this past weekend for brunch. Wasn’t our first choice but we’ve been before and had a good time.
First, they ran out of champagne so we could either have unlimited screwdrivers or bloody Mary’s. not a bad deal. But WHO runs out of champagne for a bottomless mimosa brunch? We got a carafe of vodka and OJ. Lets just say you could have set a bottle of OJ on the table and we prob would have gotten a better buzz. For $ 25 I need to be slammed!!!
Second, we ordered the hangover from the brunch menu. I mean really… FROZEN PANCAKES??? One egg, one sausage and ¼ of a potato? I could have had a #5 from McDonalds breakfast menu!
Third, our waitress was lackluster. Took forever to get her to come to our table. We waited for our bill to pay so we could leave and she was at the bar eating!!! No bueno!!‘
I will never go back. They used to have a $ 30 bottomless brunch that included drinks and food. Bring this back!!! There was a show. It was perfect then.
They are charging more and giving less.
Disappointed to say the least.

I had high expectations for this location after great times at Traffic on the east side.
This place was hot, stuffy and bugs were flying around even though outdoor seating windows were closed. Half of the other side of the restaurant had open windows which we didn’t understand because it was a stifling hot day and people want to go inside to air conditioned places.
Sangria for $ 5 was okay, a bit sweet and tasted like fruit juice. However, service was terrific. Cheeseburger rolls are recommended. Wasn’t crazy about the wings. It was hard and seemed overfried if that’s even possible.
We ate quickly so we could leave and get fresh air in the heat. I would go back to Traffic but only the east side location.

Honestly this place isn’t very good. The service has always been subpar and the good is best at average.
One if the deal breakers for be is when I order a red bull and vodka and they give me monster or some machine imitation. This palace doesn’t have RB yet thy pretend they do and will not replace your drink if you disagree.
Just really not a fan

One of the worst burgers that I’ve had at bars in Hell’s kitchen area. Would never go back.
I live in Hell’s kitchen area, and everytime I pass by this place, it seems to be a perfect spot to have dinner with cold beer at outdoor seating. Finally this Saturday, I checked this place out with a friend for dinner at 8pm. It was a cool summer day, and our outdoor seating was just perfect. But, the food was awful.
For appetizer, we tried mango crab with avocado. It was just okay, not bad but not good. Also tried barbeque burger and pesto burger sliders. Well below my expectation. Can’t believe that they are serving this poor quality burger in the Hells kitchen area where many highly-​rated bars/​restaurants are located and compete to attract more customers/​yelpers.
Not worth $$.

We stopped by here during Happy Hour on our way to another event on a Friday night. We ordered the $ 5 Sangrias which were a huge disappointment. The sangria tasted like adult Kool-​aid, the kind of drink you’d be served at a college dorm party. The ice to Kool-​aid ratio was 10, there was absolutely no fruit, and I think I got a sugar high from it. Before we could switch drinks, the waiter brought us another round of Sangria! I suppose that was thoughtful, but I definitely didn’t need to waste more money on another crappy glass of iced-​down Kool-​aid.
After the bad sangria, we debated on whether to order some food, but were both starving after work so we ordered a chefs salad and a buffalo chicken wrap. It was pretty standard bar fare, but worse. The buffalo chicken wrap was soggy and dripping wet. The accompanying fries were cold and chewy. How hard is it to screw up french fries? The salad was good with a decent amount of each ingredient. It was small but adequate.
This place gets two stars for its crappy drinks and crappy food. The only reason it gets 2 instead of 1 star is because they have plenty of semi-​outdoor seating with lots of good people-​watching along 9^th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.

This bar is actually, kinda nice. And the menu is pretty big. And the people really aren’t that terrible. Also, I liked how the bathroom sinks were outside the bathroom. That being said… it’s bar food and not in a great way. It’s loud and I’m done doing the stuff of bars. And I’m totally cool with that.
Used the Scoutmob promotion, so that helped.

Not bad, if you’re looking for a quick and easy place to grab a drink and some pub fare in HK. The bar is huge and the place is spacious and there’s plenty of seats if you’re looking to grab a sit down dinner. Lots of big TVs also make it a nice place to catch sporting events or throw a small party.
The drink specials here are decent. 4 to 8p happy hour specials with $ 5 dollar wine and sangria or well drinks are always nice. $ 4 dollar Coors draft is decent too. I also enjoyed the nice Unilocal deal, which gave you a free wine (or something else like sangria) with the purchase of any entrée.
The food here is for the most part, decent. I liked the bacon bbq burger and the fries were pretty good. The wings here are definitely one of the better items on the menu. My friends enjoyed their eggplant sandwich, though the cheese on it looked kind of meh. I had the buttermilk chicken, which was surprisingly tasty and the mashed potatoes were excellent. My only gripe was that there was only 1 piece of chicken and the entire dish cost $ 17 bucks, which seemed way overpriced for one piece of (albeit tasty) chicken. One thing to skip is definitely the spinach and artichoke dip. That was nothing to write home about.
Service here was decent and pretty attentive. Our waitress was very helpful and got our orders to us pretty quick. All in all, if you’re looking for a decent bar in this area, Traffic isn’t a bad place to check out.

Came here for a quick bite on a Saturday night.
The service here is a bit slow even though the place wasn’t too packed. We had the buffalo wings and the Traffic burger. Both dishes were really good, but standard sports bar food. Nothing outside of the ordinary. It is loud, so don’t expect to be able to have intimate conversations.

College bar alert, college bar alert.
Aka loud, obnoxious bar alert.
But if you’re looking to watch a college football game, this is definitely the spot for you. They’ve got beerpong and those weird funnel things that you can fill with beer.
I got the BBQ Bacon Slider things. They were okay. I asked for them medium, but they were definitely well done. However, I sound like kind of a beeyotch asking for sliders be cooked to a certain temperature. They’re pretty much done the second you put them on the grill.
Sliders came with a fried pickle… but don’t get too excited. The fried coating slides right off when you take one bite, it wasn’t as promising as I had anticipated.
Rusty got the mozzarella sticks and the crab «cake». This was kind of a deconstructed crab cake served cold. It was pretty good, but I would probably never order it again. Huge portion, good to share. The mozz sticks were standard.
Again, I am asking too much here. It’s obvious that this is a good place to get schwasted and watch your favorite college football team get slaughtered. If you’re catching up with your frat brothers, this is definitely the place to meet up. Just leave the roofies and frat paddle at home, okay?

I liked this spot. I was surprised that they were so empty. I had a voucher that hubby and I used. We bother got burgers and apps and some drinks. The food is really good and the energy of the patrons added to the environment.
I wanted try Traffic Bar again and hopefully get to spend a little more time there. I am not sure how it is to sit at a table. We sat at the bar so, therefore, we were served fairly quickly and were always tended to by the bar staff.
I see they offer brunch and that may me the second dining experience I may want to have. Wish me luck!

This place is great for…
… sport fans who need a place to watch a game
… party goers who need a place to pre-​game
… listening to loud music
Avoid this place if you…
… are taking a date out for dinner
… seeking a quiet place to talk with someone
… dislike fruity drinks that taste like cough syrup
2.5 stars