Alley Cat

The guy bartender is the worst. He takes 20 min to notice you at the bar and has very bad people skills. He is what is bad about this place.

They give you popcorn and cheez-​its to eat while you drink. Good drink specials and Mello music. Would come again for sure.

My girlfriends and I had made plans to check out Allen Burger Venture on a Tuesday evening earlier this December but upon hearing we would be waiting 2 hours for a table we decided to look elsewhere. Strolling down Allen we happened upon the Alley Cat, looked inside and thought, «let’s give it a shot».
Such a good decision.
Great ambiance, wonderful service and some delicious Banana Pepper Macaroni & Cheese. All for a really great price! If you are in the area and looking for a low key evening with some good eats, stop in!

Was so surprised by this restaurant. I went out to dinner with two of my favorite ladies and our first choice had over an hour and a half wait, nope not going to do that.
We got a bottle of wine and a mix drink, the bartender brought up over a bowl of bar snacks and I got the Italian Fish, while my friends got the Stuffed Pepper mac & cheese and the Buffalo mac & cheese. Entrees also come with a salad.
Prices were ridiuculously cheap for great food— highly recommend everyone instead in a low key delicious meal to head to Alley Cat.

I’ve only been here for drinks, but both times the service was great and it’s not too loud/​crowded like a lot of the other bars on Allen. And $ 5 Frozen margaritas! Can’t beat that!

Went in for lunch a few Saturday’s ago. The food and service were great. Had the Lobster mac & cheese and it was very tasty. Loved the cozy atmosphere and was happy to find a new and comfortable place to go on a Saturday afternoon.

I feel like every time I come here now, it’s just… dead. Like no one is there or something. There has to be some way to bring it back, because the cocktails are good. It’s just sad to see a place that was booming kinda… letting itself go, you know?

I was very interested to try this place and finally did the Saturday of Allentown Art Festival weekend. A friend and I went in to check it out and grab a couple drinks. Boy do I regret it. We walked in around 7:30 PM and while every other bar on Allen was standing room only, there were only 2 people sitting at the bar here. This should have been my first sign. It was nearly 80 degrees that day with high humidity and we walked into a stifling hot bar. The air was sticky in there it was so hot. Apparently the owner doesn’t want to run the AC? We decided to be fair and grab a couple beers anyway. We both only ordered a bottle of Bud Light cause we planned on drinking and bouncing to a bar that was more comfortable. They charged $ 5 apiece! For bottled Bud Light. Seriously? Explain to me again why the owner won’t put on the air seeing as how he’s super overcharging? Maybe he thinks the bar is inside an airport… or in NYC. No one wants to pay five bucks for a run of the mill beer at a self proclaimed «dive bar». Bartenders were a little awkward and strange but friendly enough. More of them than patrons I think. Sorta just milling about. Didn’t try the food. We would have had a heat stroke before it arrived.
This is unfortunate too because the place looks awesome. Someone clearly dumped a lot of money into it to make it look nice. At the rate their going it’ll be open three more months max. I don’t give it the summer personally. Changes need to be made.

We went here for dinner.
I like the atmosphere of this bar. It’s a quiet classier dive bar on Allen.
The food:
I got the cheese burger fused with bacon and she got the Ham and cheese panini. See the photos.
Orders come standard with chips but I got fries with mine and she got onion rings. We didn’t realize that the sides you order come in family size portions. We would have been fine with sharing one of the sides.
The burger was average for Allen Town. They’re pre-​made and shipped to the restaurant ready to cook. Regardless, it was still a tasty burger and reasonably priced at $ 8.75.
She has the ham panini. Large amount of ham and a very good portion for the money. The bread came toasted as it should and she enjoyed it.
We also had a couple alcoholic drinks. Our total bill came to $ 44 plus tip.

The food was good, but more importantly the experience was amazing! Relaxed atmosphere, great drink selection — laid back antique vibe. I will totally go back and you should go try it too!

Went there for dinner with my partner one evening a couple months ago because we wanted to try their mac and cheese. The sign outside said «The Kitchen is Open.» We were seated, he ordered a beer (bottled — no draft beer), and then we were told that the kitchen was closed for renovations or something but that we could order from Allentown Pizza next door. Since we were there for dinner that would have been nice to know when we walked in. We declined pizza and as my partner finished his drink we watched a couple of dogs antagonize each other a few feet away – apparently they let patrons bring their non-​service animals into the bar. We paid with a credit card and left. To top it off, we later realized we’d been charged for two drinks instead of one. Unimpressed.

Great look. Service is okay. Food smells good (didn’t try it thou). However, don’t put any money into the juke box. If the bartenders don’t like your choice of music, they skip your songs. I guess they don’t care how hard you work for your money… They don’t want to hear your shitty music that you paid to hear.

Love this place especially the bartenders Amy and Michael! Cute décor, very cosy, great place to meet up for a drink on lovely and historic Allen street.

Very quick service, so cute and quiet on the inside. I went for Sunday brunch. I had a ham panini and it was incredible, the food was of great quality. The price was also very fair. I will definitely return.

I came here on their opening night for for starter drinks. Servers were friendly, the place was really sharp looking and they had a great selection of beers for a places first night. The atmosphere here is so cozy and nice, with exposed bricks and neon lighting, the iron bars on the front adds a great edge to the front façade. I enjoyed that they gave the people I was wish our own basket of popcorn. It was nice knowing 40 people’s drunk clammy fingers were not sifting through the basket.
However I came here for dinner tonight because I was anxiously awaiting to try their Lobster mac and cheese and I was so disappointed I did not even finish it. The soup I had for starter, Broc Cheddar, was good, pretty basic. There are a few foods in life that are incredibly hard to make negativley-​pizza and macaroni and cheese. The pieces of lobster used in this were great. Actual pieces of lobster, not imitation or suspiciously shaped chunks, were mixed in and layer nicely on top.
The actual mac itself though was really disappointing. It tasted a lot like the food prepared at Tops does. Chalky, cardboard-​ey and bland. Usually when someone makes weak mac they will just salt the hell out of it to disguise it, but not even that. It was just… nothing. I know, I know, I sound harsh, but I just paid almost 12 doll hairs for something neither I or my date had a desire to finish.
I would gladly return to this place for drinks but I probably won’t return for dinner unless they do a menu reboot.

I like this place, but I have to admit, I may not be looking for the same things in a bar that other people are.
My number one criteria is — would I like to meet up with someone here?
This is a great place to meet for a drink and chat with someone. The bartenders were really nice, the ambiance is good, and it wasn’t loud or crowded.
Food, drinks, etc. aren’t that important to me, but it’s nice to know I can get a vegan slice of pizza.
Bottled beers are $ 4.50.

This review is based on just the bar. We went here after dinner on Allen st. It was a Friday night around 9pm, before we could get in, they had someone checking id’s at the door. I thought that was strange because it’s a restaurant and it’s only 9pm. But whatever… As soon as we made it thru the door all you could smell was fish! They have a really cool vibe in there and I love the décor and rustic look, but I just could not get over the smell of fish. I understand they specialize in fish, but for someone to just stop in for a drink, you walk out stinking like fish:(I would like to go back for dinner though!

The good news is that Alley Cat looks phenomenal. Lived-​in feel, low key lighting, lovely brick, and so forth combine to cloud the mind to the fact that this is the space’s first incarnation as a bar. It feels old. It feels like it’s been around a lot longer than the mere weeks it has. A few items do stand out to detract in my mind (those being the unvarnished wood of the barstools and the superabundance of animal heads littering the premises). But on the whole, it looks phenomenal.
Early, it looks like Allentown appreciates the effort. Daily since its opening, I’ve walked by. Daily, it’s been packed. In my opinion, that’s a problem (albeit one it can’t do a thing about). A thousand bars that look just like this teem on New York’s West 4^th, East 9^th, up and down Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue, and so forth. It’s glorious to slink into them at any hour of the day, hunker down, and nurse any type of drink imaginable. Here, seating is limited. Space is constrained. Alley Cat’s a great name, but Can of Sardines might be more a propos. Empty, it feels luxurious. Full, it feels frenetic.
Drinks-​wise, I do wish Alley Cat attempted a bit more. Having no recourse but bottled beer is discouraging in the day and age when even a chain quick-​fire pizza joint offers assorted microbrews on tap. On the other hand, Alley Cat isn’t aiming to please those that favor hifalutin cocktails or wines either. It’s all quite basic… which is fine but not desirable.
The second time here was for drinks ever, but my first time here was for food, a mistake I will NOT repeat. I posted a picture of my «Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese» to Unilocal on eating. The picture I took looks absolutely great, but that says more about lighting, presentation, and my absolute refusal to post subpar food photos than it does about the quality of the food itself. Having supped on gourmet mac and cheese of my own creation, of restaurant preparation for years and years, I expect a good mix of cheeses, some nice hints of spice throughout. Further, I expect that when someone advertises «XYZ macaroni and cheese,» that XYZ was baked into the original dish together. The practice of Mooney’s and others to mix in ingredients post-​bake reeks of laziness, cheapness. Alley Cat’s sins are far greater.
See, the menu item reads «Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese.» The photo I posted demonstrates that my plate arrived deconstructed, with Buffalo-​sauce smeared chicken hunks separate from bleu cheese, from mac ‘n cheese, from paltry tomato slices. What on earth? The proper nomenclature my dish was «Buffalo chicken with macaroni and cheese.» I found myself mixing my own meal and wondering, «WTF? WTF? WTF?» as I shoveled mouthful after disappointing mouthful into my mouth.
See, beyond merely the presentation, the mac ‘n cheese arrived entirely unspiced, sans even black pepper and rather tasting only of cheap cheese and butter. I suppose this is fine for some folk, but it ain’t fine for any restaurant-​grade product to my mind, especially considering the volume of same-​texture, same-​taste mess to eat. Further, the photo belies the extraordinarily sad state of the chicken breast. To save on time, effort, and money, the kitchen staff has opted not to marinate discrete chicken breasts in respective sauces but rather chose to smear sauce on post-​cooking. As I was furiously attempting to cut my chicken to mix it into the mac ‘n cheese, I would regularly accidentally wipe all sauce off the bites with the blade of my knife. Those bites of chicken were just nasty, reminded me of the elementary school days when my parents would recruit the really shoddy babysitters from the church’s youth program.
Beyond the food and drink issues, I have had ludicrous issues with service each and every time I’ve stepped in here. Bartenders are overwhelmed, confused, or else rude. Waitresses seem unable to ably serve the tiny set of tables Alley Cat contains. Perhaps just-​opened jitters are a bit to blame.
Maybe it’ll get better.
4 stars for atmosphere (5 stars — 1 for animal heads)
2 stars for drinks
1 star for food
2 stars overall

Alley Cat has been open for about two weeks now, and their kitchen only just recently opened. The chef in the back comes from Mothers and Essex and (based on neighborhood gossip) specializes in sauces and soups.
I really like what they have done with the interior — it is comfortable and homey and gives the impression that this place has always been on Allen. The owner (s?) did a great job capturing the feel of the neighborhood.
The crowd last night (6pm-​ish) was a mix of neighborhood, hipsters (perhaps redundant) and suits. I liked it.
There is no draft beer here (yet?) and they only carry one wheat beer, but it was decent.
I ordered tomato and artichoke soup. It was very good, a little salty, but delicious. I also ordered the BBQ chicken mac ‘n’ cheese which should have been described more as sauced chicken cutlets with/​and mac ‘n’ cheese. They were plated as separate items. So, if you are looking for actual BBQ chicken mac, there is some assembly required and you should ask for extra BBQ on the side to mix in with the mac. However, it was cooked well and the sauce was good — not too sweet.
The overall menu (perhaps a starter menu?) is very simple and the emphasis of being cost effective (several fish dishes, only haddock) and easy on the kitchen is apparent.
I don’t see this as a bad thing. Very often new restaurants try too hard at first and only disappoint their initial customers, losing them in the process.
I am excited to see what the chef (Bob) does with the kitchen — once he gets settled in and used to the place.
Welcome to the neighborhood!

We checked this place out on the first day it was open. We went around 10PM and took a seat at the bar. The servers were very attentive and friendly. The drinks were not as expensive as the nicely decorated bar would make you think. Within a half an hour, the booths were all filled up and the bar was 2 – 3 deep. I don’t want to judge them too harshly — since it was only their first day and I don’t think they knew they were going to be granted their liquor license that day.
Awesome things about this bar:
— Fresh popcorn on the bar
— Serves food (pizza, mac & cheese, paninis)
— Frozen drink machine
— Televisions you could see from everywhere in the bar
Downsides:
— No draught beer (yet?)
— I couldn’t hear the music
I don’t think this bar was prepared to open this day. They ran out of some of the beer fairly early on in our stay. Overall, I was happy with my experience and I am super excited to go back and try their food.