Free Parking and Come As You Are

Free parking and come as you are: that would seem to be the ideal restaurant situation for Roadfood.com readers, according to the recent poll which asked Which is the Biggest Restaurant Dealbreaker?  All these potential issues even crop up with Roadfood restaurants.  Having to dress up is probably least likely of all the choices at a Roadfood-recommended place, but it does happen, especially if you consider “dress up” to mean you have to at least give some thought to the issue.  It’s a fact of urban life that you’ll often have to pay for parking to visit many downtown Roadfood joints.  A fair number are in dicey neighborhoods.  Many of the best places often require a rather long wait.  No credit cards is common with Roadfood but, luckily, that’s usually not an issue, as the tab is often very low.

We pictured Peter Luger in Brooklyn, above, because it hits on a few of the dealbreakers.  They don’t take credit cards (and the bill is high enough to require a special ATM visit); the neighborhood is actually fine now, but it wasn’t so long ago that it was not; we doubt they’d refuse entry to you if you showed up for Saturday night dinner in shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt, but you’d definitely feel out-of-place; it’s probably pretty unlikely that you’ll find free street parking nearby, and NYC residents are probably going to cab it; if you show up without a reservation you will wait for a table for sure; but they do serve liquor.