Plenty of kinks at Yonkers Whiskey House, Central Park Ave...

You could see the odd wooden façade driving down Central Park Ave. in Yonkers. The space used to house Pasta e Pesce and most recently Rt. 100 Wine Bar. Curiosity got the best of me so I drove up to see what was going on at the new Yonkers Whiskey House. As soon as I walked in the loud music overwhelmed me. Ok, so I requested it be turned down. Got a look from the bartender, but she did, only for the sound to creep up again. I ordered a beer and examined the menu. The place was empty, except for a very loud group of guys at the bar. Kitchen staff had not arrived yet. It was close to happy hour, about 4 pm. Surveyed the two rooms. Both had an oak barrel look. Not very appealing. The menu appeared fine, loaded with tavern foods. Walked to the bathrooms and there were no towels. The trash had not been emptied. Walked back to the bar and passed by the kitchen. It needed a clean up. There was debris on the floor.
Hope they get their act together…I may give them another try down the line.

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I stopped by a few weeks ago. The place is very poorly run and as I was entering I heard complaints from a group outside who said they had a terrible meal. i too, found the bathroom filthy, and the kitchen looked like a disaster. And what is with their love of super loud hip hop music. The bartender couldn’t even hear me, and I had her turn it down as well. The GM turned it back up almost immediately.

They are a “whiskey and cocktail bar”, right… they had only a few decent whiskies, a few lousy ones, and some of the lesser craft ones, and not the good ones. And no really good ones that you could find out about with five minutes googling. It was like they told the salesman to stock their whiskey selection. Something you should never do because that gives them license to sell you all the crap they haven’t been able to unload elsewhere. But it looked like they did have every single type of cheap crappy flavored whiskey on the market.

The bartenders, two young girls who didn’t know how to use jiggers, and were using a bar spoon to spoon lemon or lime juice into a shaker tin, like ten spoonfuls, one at a time, spilling half each time. They don’t know how to make the simplest drinks, not even the ones on their specials list of recipes, and they are supposedly a cocktail bar. I tried to gently coach one of the bartenders in what is in a Manhattan and how to make it, she refused to listen, pulled out her cheat sheet, said that they didn’t have the right bourbon as on her recipe (Makers Mark), and made me some concoction that was sort of like a Manhattan but made with dry instead of sweet vermouth and was shaken. The vermouth by the way, was a really lousy, bottom shelf bulk brand. I refused it and decided to leave.

I tried to speak with the GM as I was leaving, a woman who was rude in every way. She basically told me they had an amazing cocktail program and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I left after handing her my bar consultant card and said they should get in touch when they wanted a real, quality, cocktail program. I don’t expect to hear from them. The place is a joke.

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Sounds awful!

I stopped in twice, a few days apart, with different bartenders working, and never ended up with a cocktail or service. I ended up walking out each time, totally disgusted.

Thanks for taking one for the team! My husband was excited about the idea of an actual whisky place in town, but any place serving Fireball is not a place on which we need to waste our time.