Center City Sips Review Week 1: Vintage

Anyone think I can keep this up for more than 1 week? Nah, me neither. But I will try goddammit! Now a quick note to start. The last few years we have pretty much stuck with El Vez for Sips. For good reason. I love Mexipolitans, Matty loves Lager, we both love El Vez food but we can't afford any of those things on a regular basis (except for lager if we are not at El Vez). Yes, it was busy, yes it was full of fairly obnoxious people. But it was so tasty! And if someone got there by 4:45 you could get a seat at the bar and so service wasnt that bad. So why the switch? Stephen Starr has apparently decided not to participate in Sips this year. So no El Vez. So we will be trying different places this year.


So last night for our first Sips of the summer we went to Vintage. Specials: $2 lager and Big Eye IPA (though it appears that this will be changing weekly); $3 house wines; $4 Caipirinha and Red Sangria; $5 braised short rib flatbread, $5 vegetarian squash flatbread, $5 shrimp mousse (these may also change weekly).

I think this might be their first year doing Sips. And if so, I will excuse last night as an oops. But if they are going to continue under-staffing, then they are not going to be a repeat. Now I should also add that their normal every day happy hour is $2 lager and $3 house wines but only goes from 4-6. Matty drank lager, I drank Pio Pinot Noir (my favorite from their house list), Brian and Jeff had the Pinot Grigio. We also tried the braised short rib flatbread. The drinks were fine as always (well the lager and my wine were fine, I dont know about the pinot grigio) though the pours on the wines left something to be desired. The flatbread was extremely tasty but tiny. They only had 2 waiters and 2 bartenders. Not enough at all! It was crowded (of course) but not nearly crowded enough to explain how long it took for us to get our drinks. They did have a dedicated food deliverer which is good. But they definitely need to increase staff on the floor for Sips if they want us back.