Rolf’s Bar & Restaurant

By grace.g.yang · December 12, 2011
Under: Dinner,Gramercy



One of my coworkers told me about Rolf’s because he walked by the restaurant one night and walked inside because he wanted to see the decorations. When he walked in, he was surprised and amazed with how beautiful the decorations were and suggested I stop by since it’s so close to my apartment. He suggested I make a reservation since the restaurant was packed so I called for a reservation and went with Yuko last week! The restaurant is extremely tiny and the seats are almost like little sleighs (very tiny sleighs). The restaurant has a bar on the right hand side and seats for eating on the left and the ceilings are covered entirely with Christmas decorations:

There are also dolls everywhere (which is a little scary) but it’s so beautiful and festive inside:

The restaurant is on 22nd and Third and they even have a little street sign inside:

They initially didn’t want to seat us without the full party there (a huge pet peeve of mine) but let us sit down because we promised we’d order without everyone. The bread we started with was a bit on the stale side:

Yuko and Mark ended up ordering the same thing as me and Ken – the girls ordered the wiener schnitzel with green beans and spatzle:

And the boys ordered bratwurst with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut:

The food is definitely not great (the schnitzel was super flat and barely had any meat) and the ambiance was really beautiful and we had a lot of fun going to dinner with Yuko and Mark. I’d definitely return for a drink at their bar (if it’s not super busy) but definitely not again for food. It’s definitely beautiful enough to just walk into during the holidays – I wonder what it looks like during other holidays (Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and the 4th of July must be crazy!)

Rolf's Bar & Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Reader Comments

I live right up the street from Rolf’s and pass that place every day, wondering what it looks like inside. Such a crazy little place! Definitely makes for an interesting spot to stop for a beer on a night out…

#1 
Written By Evan on December 12th, 2011 @ 8:24 am

Rolf’s has great Christmas decor, delicious sauerbraten and great German beer. Unfortunate that it was served with INSTANT potatoes. Unbelievable. Nothing German or friendly about the staff. The middle eastern “manager” or as he describes himself, “the man in charge” could not be more surly. Reminds me a lot of the “Soup Nazi” on Seinfeld. Good luck trying to make reservations. We called for four days but no one picked up and you could not leave messages. Finally walked over for lunch but that also involved a wait since they don’t even post their hours. I won’t go back unless I really need a German fix. Believe me, they don’t care!

#2 
Written By George Dallas on December 9th, 2015 @ 1:39 pm

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