Alewife NYC

Great beer, great atmosphere, great staff!

Finally made it back for brunch and it was a HUGE disappointment. The service was some of the worst I've ever had and the food was subpar at best. We sat at a dirty table which was fine b/c they just hadn't had a chance to clean it yet and we sat ourselves there but they never came to bus it. We eventually had to ask them to take the dirty dishes that didn't belong to us and we wiped the table down ourselves. The waitress never brought us water and when we finally had to get up and get it ourselves b/c not only had our food come but we were almost done eating it (that's how long we went without just water) they brought water and never brought glasses to pour it in. We again had to get up and get those ourselves as well. She never brought our beers so we ended up just going up to the bar and ordering them ourselves. It was supposed to be a bucket of beers but they just handed us the cans with no bucket to keep the extra cold in.. The waitress only visited our table a handful of times and then had the nerve to ask at the end how everything was (after admitting that the service was bad on an earlier visit to the table) and then when I said that it was not good she was confused and wanted specifics. Even after giving her the list of all that went wrong she still seemed dumbfounded. Oh! And they were out of everything it seemed. A beer we ordered, a dish on the menu we ordered, etc.. They were out! It was terrible and we'll never do brunch there again.

We had:
-Salmon Eggs Benedict: it was cold..
-Breakfast Pizza: it was okay but it was obvious that it was basically a frozen pizza that they just threw eggs and bacon on.
-The Open Face Burger w/ Egg: It was okay..
-The Seasonal Pancakes w/ a side of bacon: it was pretty good but it's pretty hard to mess up pancakes.

I came here for brunch during a LIC neighbourhood immersion event (through Brooklyn Based in partnership with Brooklyn Brewery), so part of the deal this day was a free half pint of Brooklyn beer with brunch.  I was with 3 friends, and we were all initially impressed by the craft beer and the interesting menu.   They also have a good brunch deal, which is $25 for all-you-can drink champagne-mimosa-etc. with a brunch entree.  Since we were there for the immersion, though, and already had a free half-pint, we decided to stick with a la carte.  The waitress was a really nice Irish lady and gave us recommendations on her favourites and explained to us what the black and white pudding was :)  
Everything was going great until our food started to arrive (after almost 30-40 minutes wait) and our waitress disappeared.
I ended up getting the smoked salmon benedict, and my friends got the frittata, the duck confit roulade, and the poutine.  The food runner brought out two frittatas, even though we had only ordered one.  He asked what each of us got, made an interesting face, and brought one of the frittatas back to the kitchen.  After that, someone who I believe may have been a cook or one of the chefs brought the duck confit dish and what was supposed to be the smoked salmon benedict out, but when I saw the only thing on my plate was a plain bagel, smoked salmon, and cream cheese on the side, I asked where the hollandaise sauce was, and then realized this was not what I ordered.  Apparently, there is also a plain bagel with lox and cream cheese on the menu... He apologized and brought the salmon plate back to the kitchen.  A few minutes later, he brought out my friend's poutine, and then explained to me that my dish was on its way and that he just had to "catch the salmon fresh out of the river".  I imagine this was his way of apologizing, and I thought it was nice of him and said that was fine.  When my dish finally came out, though, the eggs were over-poached and the meal itself was so-so... something I feel I could have made better in my own kitchen and saved the $14.  My friends all thought their dishes were just "okay" also.  Nothing special.  Being from Montreal, I can honestly say that the poutine was all wrong from the gravy not being brown to the cheese not being curds... but my friend enjoyed it, which is more than the rest of us could say about our meals.
Once we were done, our waitress had still not returned during any of this, and we were ready to move on to the next place in the immersion.  We never saw her again, so ended up adding up our bill and leaving what we thought was the right amount of cash for the total with tax and tip, and left the restaurant.  We even tried to catch her on the way out but she was nowhere to be seen... They weren't even that busy, so we're not sure what happened...
All in all, this seems like a better place to go hang out for a good beer and watch sports.  The food, at least the brunch menu, is not worth the price (especially if you get the $25 all-you-can-drink special and the waitress is nowhere to be found to refill the champagne!).