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| - I've been to Piper's pub numerous times- It's a great spot any time of the day! My recent trip there was for a late brunch. My friend and I arrived around 1pm & there was a 35 minute wait. The bar was packed so we put our name in and walked up the street to Mario's for a drink. When we got back to Piper's, we were sat immediately and quickly greeted by our waitress.
To start our brunch off right, I ordered a Bloody Mary and my friend ordered an Irish Coffee without the Jameson, just coffee and Bailey's. My Bloody Mary was refreshing but lacked pizazz. It wasn't spicy nor did it have any punch of pepper or any other type of seasoning. To my surprise, I found it to be weaker than the Bloody Mary I had at Mario's while we waited for our table. I've had great Bloody Mary's at Piper's so I chalked this up to be an off day at the bar. My friend had no complaints about the coffee. We opted for those as our liquid appetizers and ordered our entrees. I always go for one of three dishes- Vandaloo curry (hot), Roasted Vegetable Boxty or the Salmon Boxty. All of the Boxty dishes are available gluten free and that earns huge bonus points for Piper's! The Boxty dishes are a potato hash pancake with your choice of topping. During this visit, I opted for the Salmon Boxty. It comes with smoked salmon and sliced creamy dill cucumbers. I am not a fan of creamy food so I got the cucumbers on the side. Turns out, the cucumber sauce was light and not a heavy cream. The dill seasoning was not overpowering and complimented the dish very nicely! The portion was enough for two meals but coming off of an early morning race, I consumed the whole dish like a champion. I will order the Salmon Boxty again!
My friend ordered the vegan burger (brown rice & chickpeas) with provolone cheese, a side of BBQ sauce and fries. Sounds like a simple order, right? Well, when she got her dish, the burger had cucumber slaw and olive tapenade on it. Wayyyy off from her order! A food runner delivered the dishes to our table so when our waitress came by to check, she immediately recognized the kitchen error. She apologized and explained that she would reorder the dish and it would take a few minutes. A few minutes- no problem! Well, a few minutes turned into a 15 minute delay. For one burger! Our waitress offered a side salad or soup due to the delay and my friend opted for a side of fries. They brought those out with the correct burger but the wait was unacceptable. My friend still had an appetite for half of the burger and had no complaints about the taste. The vegan burger is not gluten free because it is rolled in bread crumbs so I was unable to try it. She got a to-go box for the rest and we got our checks. Despite throwing in an extra free side of fries, I thought Piper's would have discounted part of her meal due to the wait. Nope, full price. She was disappointed but opted not to say anything since we had already spent a lot of time there.
We both recognized that the kitchen mix up was not our waitress's fault. In fact, she was very apologetic and attentive the entire time but as a former waitress, I would have liked to see her communicate our wait time to a manager.
I am not ruling out Piper's for a future visit and I hope to see the bar and kitchen on their A game next time!
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