Rink Bar

Rockefeller Centre Aout 2011! Le Rink Bar au milieu du centre du monde!
Le cadre est magnifique, on boit un verre devant la statut dorée éphygie au centre de la place et on se détend entre les cadres sup en costumes ou tailleurs et les touristes en sandalette
Melting Pot, c’est aussi ca NYC! Malgré l’addition certes un peu salé (en incluant le tip)!
Une astuces? Offrez-​vous le cheesecake! Il est succulent

Very pricey and touristy, but actually quite a fun thing to do on a warm sunny day. The fountain makes it feel very tropical, the drinks are good (but very overpriced), and it’s a very fun crowd/​place to be after work. It can get VERY hot in the summer, so it’s nice there are umbrellas, but more than once my friends and I have just left due to dehydration from drinks and the sun. Still — a very fun place to go in the summer!

Came here for a quick after work drink and had a great time.
It was pretty packed at the bar, but we were able to get a table that would normally be reserved for dinner. We ordered two strawberry margaritas and guacamole and both came out pretty fast. Granted they aren’t hard to prepare, but still.
Service was really good and the food/​drinks were good as well. No complaints. I’ll definitely be back!

went here twice. both are during hot summer weather. I had the Acai frozen margarita. they’re really good… maybe because the weather was hot. but i really enjoyed that drink.
I had the brownies with ice cream from the dessert menu… NOT GOOD. the brownies was too hard!

A summertime staple of the Rock Center Café, I ordered two drinks from Rink Bar during our dinner outside Rockefeller Center.
— Jalapeño Lemonade
— Elderflower Gimlet
The lemonade was a featured drink on the menu, and the combination was so odd, I had to give it a try. This was definitely a drink you get to experience the taste, not to quench your thirst. The flavor combinations of tart and spicy were delicious.
The Elderflower Gimlet is an old-​fashioned cocktail that I’ve ever only had made right in my Cincinnati pub: Japp’s.
Was I surprised when a delicious Gimlet arrived at my table, just like home.
If you’re looking for a great place to have a specialty cocktail, check out Rink Bar!
Average Drink Price: $ 9 — $ 13

We went in expecting overpriced drinks and crappy service. Its exactly what we got. Except it was VERY overpriced and VERY crappy service. Oh well, my bad.

now don’t get it twisted, i’m not a cheapskate. i spend baby. but this tourist trap charges $ 12 for a glass of beer. 12 freakin dollars. thats the most i ever paid for a beer ever.
my friend and i, after a long morning of work, decided to go here to grab a few for lunch. after looking at the drink menu full of $ 12 and $ 13 dollar cocktails, we decided it was prob too much to blow on a lunch drink. good olé reliable beer. we ordered 2 summer ales. the bill came to $ 26 and change with tax. after rubbing my eyes a few times, it was confirmed. my asian eyes did not deceive me. it was indeed $ 12 a beer with tax.
as for the rest of it, good outdoor atmosphere, tented bar area, a lot of eye candy (and also some touristy whales with fannie packs, plural as they need two of em tied together to wrap the whole thing around their waist). the bartender was cool, had a good talk about sports.
but still not enough to make up for a $ 12 beer. where do you get off? do you not realize that a $ 7 beer is already a ripoff? to add an extra 71% (i did the math in my head just now) to that already high price is ludicrous. i won’t be back.
side note: we ordered a cocktail for $ 12 a piece afterwards cause we didn’t want to feel THAT ripped off. so we let them rip us off more, just not as much as the beer. so TAKE THAT ROCKEFELLER BAR.

I had lunch there today with my mom. Mom had the Friday Special — Grilled Octopus Salad, i had the regular not lunch special dish — Slow Roasted Salmon. It was good. We enjoyed the company, the food. The only bad part is because they were very busy, so the sitting was very confused, the first host told us the only area has sits are the middle lounge area or the bar, we were ok to sit at the «middle lounge», then she said walk straight then turn left. but then the waiter told us we have to go to the host, so we said we were at the host already, then he said we have to go to the second host for tables. I was like «the second host»? Anyway, so we were at the second host & she got us a table finally after asking if we were eating or only want drinks. We finally ordered our food, then the waiter came back 15 mins later & asked/​confirm what we ordered, I was thinking in my head at the time «you haven’t place orders for us? u kidding right?»
Luckily, the food were good and sitting by the small water fall was a plus.
But i sure won’t go there again during busy hours like that. If they weren’t that busy, the sitting shouldn’t be so confused and the waiter should be better.

Drinks are OK – come during happy hour when there Oh about a $ 1 or $ 2 off their regular price. It’s a pretty relaxing feel, though definitely gets crowded in the summer and is very touristy.

Being the first time that I had ever been to NYC, I met up with some friends and went to go do the tourist thing. We had been walking around for a bit and I was getting hungry, since I hadn’t eaten all day (which is what usually happens in the busy summer) we came across good old Rockefeller Center and the Rink Bar.
We went up to the hostess and she said that there was seating available at the bar, so the three of us took some seats and started looking at the menu. I ended up ordering Crab cake with risotto, mixed greens and a summer ale from a Brooklyn brewery. I was impressed with with the presentation and also the price. My other two friends ordered mixed drinks and shared a cheesecake, which was also delicious. It was nice and moist and not dried out.
We were served right away and our bar tender was the life of the party making snide comments and making us laugh. I can not wait to go back this summer and try it again.

The Rink Bar is your typical afterwork midtown bar. Its a mix of financials and tourist. They have daily specials which start at about $ 6 the regular drinks are a bit overpriced. Its a good place to go after work but thats about it.

We came across this place as we were doing the tourist thing in the city over Labor Day weekend 2009. We hadn’t planned to stop here, but got a deal on tickets to Top of the Rock that included a drink at Rink Bar. The tickets cost $ 5 more than normal, so we took a guess that a drink at Rink Bar would be more than $ 5.
After our trip up to the roof of 30 Rock, we made our way down to Rink Bar. The hostess originally seated us at a table against the very edge of the rink, with one seat looking into the rink and one seat staring into a wall. Not my ideal, so I asked if they had something closer to the center of the rink with a better view. Was definitely worth asking! We got moved to table right in front of the fountain at the base of the building, where both seats got a nice view to people watch.
There’s not much else good to say, unfortunately. The service was slow (though the waiter was friendly enough), the drinks tasted watered down, and my steak was overcooked (though my wife’s pasta bowl wasn’t bad). Everything was definitely overpriced.
The one saving grace was that it was an absolutely FANTASTIC night out. It had been close to 80 degrees during the day, but the weather couldn’t have been nicer to sit outside, enjoy some drinks and watch the people.

I went here about 2 weeks ago after work with a friend for our weekly night out. Obviously, the backdrop doesn’t get much better and we took some great pictures! It’s a great place to enjoy drinks outside when the weather is nice and not as touristy as some might think. We sat at a table in the covered bar area.
I had a drink special (Maker’s + Apple for $ 3.50) The appetizers we ordered were a little pricey (no shocker for Rock Center) and not very good. My calamari tasted as though it had been fried and then left out for a half an hour to get soggy. I’d chalk this up to the fact that we were there somewhat late on a weeknight when the place had begun to empty out.
Waitress was super friendly and attentive. Music was Top 40 fun stuff and not too loud. I’d definitely go back when the weather warms up again.

There aren’t many areas more touristy than The Rock. But, undeterred, we fought our way through the throngs of camera-​toters.
Finally made it down to the bar area. The bar itself was packed with the happy hour crowd, so we opted for a table by the fountain for some drinks and munchies.
The drinks were fine. The food was also fine. We ordered appetizers, so I can’t speak to the quality of the non-​chips and salsa fare. What struck me was the reasonable prices. For the location, I was expecting $ 15 per drink.
Nice location when the weather’s nice. Surprisingly relaxing given the area. Might fill up at other times, but the tables were manageable at happy hour. I enjoyed it. Would return and try the real food.

YUM!
Beautiful location on a warm summer evening. We sat outside and stared at the beautiful water fountain thingie. I took my two boys to dinner at this restaurant. I was not expecting much but to my surprise, my dinner was fabulous! I had a pan roasted fillet of salmon with a smoked tomato purée. It was out of this world — and I’m pretty hard to impress. The portion was huge and I loved that it did NOT come with mashed potatoes or rice or some other starch. Just veggies… My boys each had something off the kid’s menu and they too were pleasantly surprised! :)

In an effort to eat and drink all the way around the Plaza — literally, I finally made it to the Rink Bar (what have I been doing all this time?)! At around 7pm on a Thurs, this place was PACKED! Like most of these midtown hang-​outs, stay far far away if you don’t want to be rubbing shoulders with the «biz-​casual» crowd, the suits clearly hang-​out elsewhere.
The odd orange couch/​chairs were really comfy if you can snag one, and the drink specials (different everyday) were a pretty good deal at around $ 8. I haven’t gotten over loving the Plaza, so I still think it’s a cool location to boot!

OK, so I’ve spend a LOT of time in and around NYC — family lives there, had many offices there, etc. When I play tour guide, I always take ‘em to 30 Rock just to point and say «SNL lives here.» I get ooo’s and ahh’s appropriately, and then we go somewhere else.
I’ve seen the Rink Bar. Walked by the Rink Bar. That’s about it. I always figured this is where the tour bus from Ohio opens its doors and lets people off to think that they had a Authentic New York Experience™. Never gave it more of a thought than that…
…then, this past Saturday happened. Was, once again, doing the tour guide thing — but this time at night. It was late, felt like a drink as I often do… there was something that looked like a table at the bar… so, fine. How bad could it be?
Turns out: not at all. Sure, there were some people there that look like they got off the bus, but not as many as I thought. And, the drinks were really pretty good… we hung out there for a while, actually — and it didn’t feel weird at all.
Ok, sortofa backhanded complimentary review, I admit — but I just… can’t…bring myself to 100% endorse a place that is there for the tourists only. (See the «I’m a snob» section of my profile.)
Oh…screw it. Go there. It’s nice.

I’ve seen this place on TV as a kid. Had drinks right in front of the Prometheus statue and fountain. Not too busy during the day. $ 10 cocktails worth it for the view. Couldn’t get the Conan O’Brien theme outta my head (this place is in the opening credits).

Woah, I was quite pleasantly surprised by this spot. Went to meet coworkers for happy hour after watching world cup rugby game at Tonic, so I’d eaten and had a few drinks already. The calamari looked very tempting, however!
Good drinks, and it is absolutely lovely down there! Very nice. And service is great.
The bathroom loses its attendant after a certain time though, and gets absolutely disgusting very quickly, and you have to deal with hordes upon hordes of tourists everywhere.

I came here for a work event and thought it was great.
The spot is right in front of the rockefeller center and is packed with people. Its a great outdoor bar for a summer time happy hour.
I got there at 6 and left at 9 — and the place was still packed as I left.
I can’t really comment on the food b/​c I didn’t really eat too much — and our drinks were complimentary — but they weren’t bad.
This is definitely a good place for a work event — or for drinks after work with friends. I was a fan of the top 40s music they started playing around 8. woo,

The rink bar is a great place to visit during great weather — whether its a nice warm summer/​spring afternoon, to a cool breezy night in the fall. The prices seem to be reasonable during happy hour (beers, mixed drinks), but they aren’t incredibly cheap since they are afterall in the midtown of touristy midtown. The service always seems busy in that they can’t keep up with how many people show up every hour. Overall its a nice place, can’t complain for the atmosphere but one most certainly can for the at times slow service. They just simply need to hire more people, lower the drink prices, and they’ll be set.