| rev:text
| - This establishment is having an identity crisis.
My impression from my one visit is that its lacking vision as to what it wants to be, what kind of clientele it wants to attract, what proportions it takes on as food/wine/social destination..and at what cost.
Maybe its a curse of the old location since the old elbow room was so overwhelmingly "soft boiled egg" aesthetic - whatever it is, the place certainly HAS tons of potential and maybe with some growing pains and one good cook/leader in the kitchen can become someplace I actually want to spend 12 dollars for on a drink.
+ The space, the long bar, the seating, the wine display, the lighting, the copper sheets behind the bar - all signs point to a nice dark den for imbibing alcohol. The feature cocktails are good (although my opinion is that they would be more delicious if they used fresh pressed juices and crushed/hand cut ice in the craft cocktails) They could use a long bank of linear mirrors on the wall behind the bar and the opposite wall - it would make the space seem bigger and invite people to check other people out :)
-The wine & food combo - the wine selection seemed decent (i only drank the cocktails) and the waiter told us about the expanding/changing selections - so that aspect of this place being a wine bar seems to be covered well.. however.. if you're going to bill yourself as a wine bar, and sell 150 dollar bottles of wine, then you REALLY need to UP YOUR FOOD GAME in pairing.
I had quite possibly the saddest looking cheese/olive/hummus plate I have ever seen in my life. The hummus was fluffed with something (you know to make it seem like theres more of it than there really is) - the olives and hot peppers were from a can. It was sad, just really really sad. The cheese.. yep there was some on my plate.
We also had the mac n cheese - which lacked flavor and salt. It bills itself as the best mac n cheese in town but take a walk to Kelly's down the street - thats some great mac n' cheese. The food was terrible especially at 10 dollars starting for an appetizer i can just buy in a can from a store.
If you're going to be a wine bar, visit some wine bars in big cities for these kindof prices.. see that you dont need a giant plate of subpar food, do something small, delicious and perfect for the wine..
-The waiter told us about some upcoming changes and mentioned that they were trying to make the earlybird clientele happy as well as get in the shadyside crowd off the street into the place so it couldnt be too whatever... I see a huge flaw in this.. you cant possibly be a destination hi-end wine bar with class and at the same time pander to the lowest common denominator of douchebaggery.
Have the courage to be a destination place - i would LOVE to have a regular wine bar with great cheese, cocktails and music to go hang out at for happy hour and Pittsburgh needs something that isnt a football watching venue in between.
Plenty of restaurants (i.e. Legume..i know its not in the same league).. pick crappy locations and focus on becoming a destination and succeed! So i hope that 1947 doesnt continue to try to get the sloppy seconds coming out of bites and brews and rights itself into the kindof place where you can sink into your chair and stay for a while without it feeling like a meat market and making the food and drink worth it.
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