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| - Waited about a month from opening to try Tempo, in hopes that they'd have worked out any kinks in the service and/or menu. Looking at earlier reviews, it's apparent there was some working-out to do. Yelp! shows review trends, which is useful, and in Tempo's case you can see that the trend is headed in the right direction.
First impressions, based on the new atmosphere and menu are great. Walking in, you get the feel of a trendy, Brooklyn new-American restaurant, which is appealing to me. The menu has significant range, which should be helpful for supporting a wide variety of tastes; an ambitious menu also means the restaurant will have to be well-supported, or the menu will eventually need to be dumbed-down. For the sake of variety, let's hope Tempo gets that support.
Our particular server, whose name I can't recall, unfortunately, was very, very good. Food was somewhat slow out of the kitchen, which made a quality server that much more important. It's tough to rate an entire waitstaff on one server, but the gentlemen who served us was excellent.
I ordered the Chicken & Waffles, which probably isn't the first thing you should try at a new restaurant, but I had a craving. The waffles were good, the chicken was very, very good. Everybody at the table was happy with their food, as well.
Pricing and portions are that of a nice, but not exceedingly nice, restaurant. The menu isn't cheap, but it's not overpriced. The portions aren't huge; I like overeating as much as the next guy, but in this type of setting I'd rather have quality than quantity, so Tempo does fine in this context.
This is a strong start for a restaurant that replaces another that had struggled mightily. Learning from the failures of their predecessors will help: menu consistency, focus on the quality of the waitstaff and service in general, and participation of the ownership are things that matter significantly for any restaurant, especially a new one. Those boxes are all checked for Tempo right now, and hopefully they'll remain that way.
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