I've been to Ten Penny once when it first opened about two years ago and unfortunately it wasn't a particularly good experience. Being that it was two years ago I chalked that experience up to new restaurant growing pains and my boyfriend and I decided to give it another try yesterday for Valentine's Day. They were one of the few restaurants downtown with an available table and as we learned, it was for good reason.
Before digging into where it went wrong, I'd like to mention some of the good - the decor and atmosphere is great. They paid a lot of attention to detail, the restaurant has a chic modern industrial design and comes complete with monogrammed dinnerware. The draft list is also quite large with a good selection of breweries and styles.
The problems started from the minute we walked in the door, we weren't greeted or acknowledged by the staff for at least 5 minutes, despite a crowd of them being gathered by a terminal no more than arm's length from us at the door. After being seated, the service was also quite slow and disorganized despite only about a third of the restaurant being filled.
The food was also a big disappointment, for the holiday they swapped out their normal menu for a much more limited Valentine's Day menu plus two of their burgers. Our meatball appetizer was simply ok, nothing all that impressive. Both of us ordered their signature burger as nothing on the menu really appealed to us. Both burgers were oozing with grease and lacking in taste. We finished the night with the chocolate cherry whiskey bar (a small dessert for $12) that could only be described as inedible.
Considering the selection of restaurants in the city, I'm really not sure how they managed to stay around this long. This place could be much better than it is if they decided to focus on improving their service and their menu.