5 Ninth Bad Experience, awful front-of house
I would NOT recommend 5 Ninth. On front-of-house service alone. The management is so incompetent that we walked out before the privilege of eating there.
Judging from the posts here we really had not missed anything in terms of the cuisine.
We had a 9pm reservation on a Saturday. We arrived a few minutes early. The bar area was packed and lively (a good sign). One of the hostesses told us oh, it will just be a couple of minutes before your table is ready.
Around 20 minutes after our reservation time still no update from them, no table. My husband checked in again at which point one of the staff said, "Oh, yeah it will be awhile. You should get another drink." Needless to say we have believed their first estimate so had not ordered the first round.
We were enjoying our drinks at the bar but were getting increasingly frustrated by the wait—and lack of any apparent concern about this from the staff. At around 9:45 someone came around and said "you guys will be next." Soon after this we had finished our drinks. They still hadn't come to get us. We were so turned off by the way they handled the situation we decided to leave.
These people really need to learn how to manage a restaurant. Had they been (remotely) honest from the start we might have ended up staying and spending some decent money.
We left in a great mood. Went to Diner on 14th street. Had a fantastic time at a place with nice serivce, a live DJ, yummy comfort food. All at a fraction of the cost of 5 Ninth.
