Restoration Hardware is now also a restaurant, and NY Times is not impressed

[FauxPas]

I remember the older Restoration Hardware stores. I thought they were a fun place to wander through. I can't believe this place has the same history. 

 

Obviously, this restaurant is selling itself as lifestyle and decor more than food. Encouraging people to take aspects of the restaurant home with them the same way that some hotel brands do - buy the Westin bed, its sheets and mattresses along with the bath toiletries. In this case, I guess you buy the lighting, the sofas, the tables and try to recreate the ambience of the restaurant itself (in all its beige-ness, ha). 

 

Not sure what to think, but here's a link that should be free to read. 

 

I didn't think the menus were necessarily all that awful.

[Dave the Cook]

 

Quote

RH has opened 15 of these restaurants across the United States and Canada in the last decade, most of them connected to stores, and they have clearly resonated with diners, many of them drawn by the décor. Each restaurant earns an average of $10 million annually, said Gary Friedman, the company’s chief executive.

 

$10 million per store? That's unbelievable.

[gfweb]

That doesn't look like a dinner menu to me.  Lunch maybe.

[Anna N]

30 minutes ago, gfweb said:

That doesn't look like a dinner menu to me.  Lunch maybe.

Try scrolling to the right.  

[Kerry Beal]

$82 for a rotisserie chicken - $125 for a birthday cake - but hey the sprinkles are free. 

[Anna N]

I have a vision of a diner saying when the bill is presented,

“Could you add the chairs and table to that and put them in my trunk?” (It might make a fine New Yorker cartoon).

[SusieQ]

From the NYTimes article: 
Faith Wilde, 25, another guest in Dallas, said that these days, she is more interested in a restaurant’s appearance. “If it doesn’t look like this, we probably won’t even go,” she said.

Sigh.

[weinoo]

They're (RH) certainly not the first.  abc carpet & home has had restaurants within their multifloor Flatiron district store for many years.  Some of them were even good.

[Duvel]

Ikea, too …

[weinoo]

43 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Ikea, too …

Nothing like a platter of Swedish meatballs to make my day!

[weinoo]

And if we really want to step back in time, remember that Woolworth's always had a lunch counter! (Though I doubt the "furnishings" at Woolworth's match up to either RH's or abc carpet's (or IKEA's, for that matter).

 

 

Picture from here.

Edited October 25, 2022 by weinoo (log)

[rotuts]

some of the food @ IKEA was quite decent.

 

not their coffee.

 

seniors used to go to one near me for breakfast. 

 

ask me how I know .

[Shelby]

11 hours ago, FauxPas said:

I remember the older Restoration Hardware stores. I thought they were a fun place to wander through. I can't believe this place has the same history. 

 

Obviously, this restaurant is selling itself as lifestyle and decor more than food. Encouraging people to take aspects of the restaurant home with them the same way that some hotel brands do - buy the Westin bed, its sheets and mattresses along with the bath toiletries. In this case, I guess you buy the lighting, the sofas, the tables and try to recreate the ambience of the restaurant itself (in all its beige-ness, ha). 

 

Not sure what to think, but here's a link that should be free to read. 

 

I didn't think the menus were necessarily all that awful.

Wow.  I haven't been to Restoration Hardware in years and years.  They actually had one in the big city--one of the first "cool" stores that I remember.  It was a must-stop when I used to leave the house and shop for Christmas.

 

 I can't imagine eating at one lol.

[blue_dolphin]

My cousin was telling me about her lunch with friends at the Chicago location last week.  Not quite as pricy as the NYC menu linked.  They enjoyed wandering around the store with their glasses of wine and had good things to say about the food and service.

It's one thing to offer a round of drinks in the bar when people are just relaxing and talking but being booted from a table while people are still eating as happened to the NYTimes writer isn't nice. 

[gfweb]

When I was a kid  John Wanamaker's had one of the classier spots to eat in Philadelphia.  Wedding  venue now.

 

 

 

Old menu

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

It's one thing to offer a round of drinks in the bar when people are just relaxing and talking but being booted from a table while people are still eating as happened to the NYTimes writer isn't nice

They really ought only boot people who aren't writers for the Times!

[Katie Meadow]

12 hours ago, Anna N said:

I have a vision of a diner saying when the bill is presented,

“Could you add the chairs and table to that and put them in my trunk?” (It might make a fine New Yorker cartoon).

All that comes to mind is fried cinnamon doorknobs, bedsheet lasagne, wall scones.

[Duvel]

3 hours ago, gfweb said:

Old menu

Is an „Old Fashioned & Chicken soup“ exactly what I think it is ? 

[gfweb]

46 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Is an „Old Fashioned & Chicken soup“ exactly what I think it is ? 

 

Nope

 

Its just chicken soup.

 

Sadly

[Margaret Pilgrim]

9 hours ago, weinoo said:

And if we really want to step back in time, remember that Woolworth's always had a lunch counter! (Though I doubt the "furnishings" at Woolworth's match up to either RH's or abc carpet's (or IKEA's, for that matter).

 

 

Picture from here.

And the backs of the seats had a clip to hold your hat, or else there was the same hooky-thing just in front of your knees on the counter base.

[liamsaunt]

On 10/25/2022 at 11:00 AM, gfweb said:

When I was a kid  John Wanamaker's had one of the classier spots to eat in Philadelphia.  Wedding  venue now.

 

 

 

Old menu

 I used to love to go to Wanamaker's as a kid!  They had a train that went around the ceiling of the toy department that you could ride on while your parents went Christmas shopping.  You could look out the windows for a birds-eye view of all the toys and decide what you wanted to ask for on your Christmas list that year.  It was great.  I don't remember the restaurant.  I probably wasn't well-behaved enough to be allowed to eat there 🤣

 

Anyway, this restaurant sounds terrible. I do have some RH glass fronted bookcases in my home and they are very nice indeed, but I would not even think of going their store to eat.  RH doesn't even sell kitchen furniture to my knowledge.  Dining tables, yes, but not anything for the actual kitchen.  

 

[gfweb]

17 minutes ago, liamsaunt said:

 I used to love to go to Wanamaker's as a kid!  They had a train that went around the ceiling of the toy department that you could ride on while your parents went Christmas shopping.  You could look out the windows for a birds-eye view of all the toys and decide what you wanted to ask for on your Christmas list that year.  It was great.  I don't remember the restaurant.  I probably wasn't well-behaved enough to be allowed to eat there 🤣

 

 

 

 

That train was great.  As close to an amusement park as I ever got as a kid.

 

Can you imagine the insurance risk it would be today?

 

The only thing left from that era is the gigantic pipe organ...biggest in the world perhaps. They still use it, staffed, I think, with volunteers.

 

Re in-store dining..the Urban Outfitters group has put Vetri-related restaurants in some of its classier places.

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by gfweb (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

The closest I've come to a RH was being sucked into one of their gigantic warehouse sales when we were traveling.   We arrived a half hour before it opened and found maybe 300 people already in line.    Husband dumped me at the end of the line and went to find parking.     I got in before he returned and quickly found that they were selling nothing in our category of interest.    Crawling out over the tops of incoming shoppers, I found husband just before he was about to enter.    We figured we dodged a bullet.