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World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA

Posted by Chewru Guru on Nov 09, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Wouldn’t make the band.

World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA
3025 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 222-1400
Meal: Dinner / Weekday / 7pm
Price: $54 (For two – excludes tip)
Website: Worldcafelive.com

If a band you love is playing at the world cafe live, you’re certainly not going to weigh the food quality of the venue before grabbing your ticket. With that in mind, having some idea about the grub might save you money when you’re forced to buy a minimum (for our show, we had to spend $10). With two different venues-within-a-venue, World Cafe Live has a more intimate ‘upstairs’ for smaller acts, and a larger ‘downstairs’ for the bigger ticket shows. We went to see one of our favorite bands, Travis, at the downstairs section in the middle of the week. Parking was ample and free at a UPenn faculty parking lot and was just a short walk from the action.

As soon as you enter the door, you’re right at the ‘upstairs’ section, which appeared to have a small stage, bar, and a bunch of tables. You can take an elevator or the stairs to the ‘downstairs’, and we elected to get the extra exercise. Our seats were in the ‘luxury’ mezzanine section (which is a balcony), but don’t be impressed as the tickets weren’t more than $24 a pop. The mezzanine has a lot more room to roam around, although the ticketed seats don’t give you a whole lot of room to comfortably eat. Because of that, the venue offers six or seven unticketed tables to eat with a lot more room. Still, we ended up eating at our ticketed seats anyway (which is a long pub table) as we got the show a little late. We started off our drinks with our typical favorites.. a long island iced tea and a malibu with diet coke.

The first thing that jumped out to me was how expensive the menu was. The pork chop I ordered was $17, but I recall the crab cakes and some other dishes in the mid $20s. The sample menu on the World Cafe Live website has 5/10 choices over $20, with the average price of all of them at a steep $18.60. It’s bad enough to deal with the ridiculous LiveNation service fees (how do they figure a convenience charge for printing tickets at home when you save them paper, ink, and postage?), but to look at meals that rival the ticket prices is really a shot in the gut. Make no mistake about it, the World Cafe Live is asking to be considered as an upper tier restaurant when the average dinner entree is aspiring towards 20 bucks. We’ll hold them to that.

[View with PicLens]

Autumn’s spaghetti and meatball dish equaled mine at the $17 mark, and the portion was just as skimpy. The pasta was good, not great, and probably somewhere between what you’d get in a diner and your typical Olive Garden. The pork, garlic mashed potatoes, and broccoli looked a little more appealing in my opinion, but the meat was a bit on the fatty side. The drinks were passable but a bit watered-down and certainly didn’t seem a value at $8.25 and $7.25 a pop. After burning $15+ on two ho-hum alcoholic beverages, we learned our lesson and declined anything more even as our persistent waitress asked three or four more times through the night, including in the middle of songs. Speaking of our waitress, she forgot to complete Autumn’s drink order initially and wasn’t even tasked to actually deliver the meal. Curiously, the sample menu for the upstairs’ entrees averages out to $16.28 a dish minus the sandwiches (we didn’t include the sandwiches in the downstairs average). Here’s something though.. the pulled pork sandwich is $13 downstairs vs $10 upstairs, and the WCL burger is $14 downstairs versus $10 upstairs. Did they raise their prices in between posting sample menus or is the food price change depending on where you sit? If it’s not just a snafu with the dates the menus were posted, it’s really, really lame.

Our recommendation when eating at the World Cafe Live is to get whatever minimum is required for your show, and nothing more. After leaving what was another terrific performance by Travis, I was in the mood to grab a hoagie somewhere because the appetizer-sized bone-in pork chop and two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy me. The food isn’t bad, by any measure, but is just so egregiously priced that its easy to feel being taken advantage of. If you’re going to drink, stick to the beer or something that is far unlikely to be diluted by the house. It’s a shame the food is a downer because from a standpoint of enjoying a band, it’s a cool place to hang out; there’s pretty good viewing angles and even the furthest seats are still close to the stage.

Pros:

- Great venue from a music standpoint
- Free parking within walking distance

Cons:

- Way overpriced
- Small portions

Guru’s Score: 2.0 Chews
Autumn’s Score: 2.6 Chews
Combined Score: 2.3 Chews

Subjective rating: Disappointing.