The Playhouse & Swillburger

Reviews 5

PA

Paul Cicotta

The Playhouse Swillburger is my go to spot in the neighborhood for food, arcades, and FUN!! The Playhouse is owned by the same people who run The Owl House, so you know this establishment will run a smooth operation. I have attended MANY events at this location such as the Rochester Young Professionals Night, and the Gayyyyyy Trivia and Video Game Night to name a FEW. The upstairs gives you plenty of room to roam around during the event, and downstairs to play around. There is always someone you are going to run into, and maybe a new person you might find while playing on the multitude of Arcade games they have available. The interior is extremely colorful, including the walls making you feel like youre in a REAL Playhouse. The food is decent for the fact this place will give you MANY options on a variety of burger patties and their famous tater tots. Dont expect to have a 5-Star meal; just expect to have perfect comfort food to satisfy your video game craving. The drinks are also up to snuff, and the bartender will create a bunch of different themed cocktails that rotate often. Perfect weekday date night out, "Hey baby, lets grab some tokens and have some of those tater tots at Swillburger". BURGERS: I love the multitude of Vegan options available on the menu, and I would highly recommend the BIG VEGGIE PATTY. Now, I have never eaten a Vegan Burger before, but man did this burger pack flavor. You can tell the burger patty was custom pounded out, and the vegan ingredients manually combined together. The best way to describe the flavor is very citrus with hints of garlic, beets, carrots, and celery. The burger comes on top of a KALE SALAD. Dude, healthy on top of healthy, welcome to every gay mans paradise with VIDEO GAMES- SWEET! The Kale Salad was phenomenal with fresh kale greens, almonds, lemon juice, salt, and garlic with parmesan cheese on top. This meal just gets better, as the Veggie Patty is TOPPED with their homemade HOT JAM. This flavorful drizzle of warm grape jelly complimented my Veggie Patty well, with their signature SwillBurger Sauce which had hints of horseradish throughout. TATER TOTS: this signature item is what Swillburger is famous for, and every tater tot combination changes per day. Some memorable TOTS are the pickled onions, ranch, peppers, and a Dijon tangy mustard cheese. Others can include chives, grilled onions, and wasabi on top. This establishment isnt afraid to re-invent themselves with food, so hands off my tots. DRINKS: The JUNGLE BIRD will have you hopping from one game to another as this tasty cocktail was combined with Rum, Campari, Gin, Lime, and Pineapple. Another favorite is the WINTERMULE cocktail which has Rittenhouse Rye, Beet Sage, Pineapple, and Lemon. I never would have thought vegetables would taste good in a cocktail, but I was impressed with the fresh and not over-powering taste of the beets combined with the pineapple and Rye. Need to LEVEL UP!, try one of their SHOT AND BEER COMBOS. I would recommend the THE DONKEY KONG level up! which is a combo of the Ballast Point Grapefruit Beer and Sculpint Tequila. Now you can have Mario pound as many barrels as he wants while climbing that ladder. ARCADES: this can be a hit or miss, depending if there in service or not. Swillburger has a vast variety of classic arcade, and pinball machines. I do get annoyed when the pinball machines I want to play are not in service. The prices to play these games are a little steep, as I am used to playing unlimited pinball at the Strong Museum. Sometimes you can get lucky and a machine will be broken giving you unlimited play- BONUS. This is still a great time with friends if you are in the area. Overall: TOP Cocktails, AMAZING Vegan Choices, The BIG Veggie Patty, Arcades, The Famous Tatar Tots, and the Level Up!...Of Course I Will Be Back.

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HE

Henry Quinn

This place is, for lack of a better word, awesome. Easily the best burger Ive ever had, and the best fries Ive had in a long time, too. I cant speak for the booze, but my brother and mother both seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. As for me, I was quite satisfied with my rootbeer as well. Whats more, there are arcade machines here. Amazing ones. I havent gotten to play Galaga in so long! I also greatly enjoyed playing Game of Thrones pinball against the family, which was easily one of the most complex pinball machines Ive ever seen. The food is great. The entertainment is great. The location is great. The restaurant itself is very sparsely decorated, but serviceable; you dont really need a huge, grandiose decor budget when you have two lines of back to back arcade machines. I love this place. I cant recommend it highly enough. If youre in the area, try it out for the food if nothing else, and inevitably end up staying and spending far too much on Street Fighter.

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JA

Jacob Publicover

Updated: After returning months later, all of my previous complaints remain, hipster heaven and they seem content with that. Best of luck to them, but I will not be returning Original review: Nice new place, needs some improvements though to happily move it forward. Sound dampeners on the ceiling, it was very loud and noise carried a lot in there. Voices too, not the arcade games, those were perfectly volumed Bit more detail on the menu, in Rochester youd assume the "Swillsauce" was a meat hot sauce, its actually a relish mustard type, just more info would be good. Lastly, its quite pricey for a new establishment and for what youre getting. $6.50 for a standard issue cheeseburger is kind of nuts. I understand its fresh local meat, but for a burger with no sides, that is a high price point. I am sure I will return as they have a solid rotating draft list. The potential is there for success

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KR

Kraig Connor

I hope by the time the beer starts flowing I will be able to rate this 5 stars. The burger was decent but the sides, for their price, were mediocre at best. I should have just ordered two burgers. But I didnt really come for the food. I do see a couple issues in the very near future when it becomes more of a bar. First issue - are you going to have a bouncer to keep under-aged kids out? Are you going to continue to allow children? If youre going to allow children you might be driving away the type of crowd (post college - 40 something year olds) that youre looking to bring in. It might be better served to charge a cover ($10+) and make the games (or select games) free once you can start serving beer. I will be coming back soon. It is a great spot for say a first date or just hanging out with some friends. Im excited this is in Rochester and have very high hopes.

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KE

Kevin Karcher Jr.

What a unique experience. We meet here as a group prior to a training day. Our group covered the cost of a burger and a beer so I can not comment much on the pricing. I did buy a couple beers myself and found them reasonably priced. The beer selection was great, the bartenders where attentive and the atmospheres was vibrant. The burger was more then a standard grill patty. It was cooked well and the secret sauce added a nice touch. I got their smokey and hot fries that did not disappoint. The old school video games where entertaining . I liked that all the games where the old style , Tetris, Maddden 99, and Space Invaders to name a few where great. Plus a good selection of older pinball was really cool. I liked that they did not try and over it with new games like a lot of similar establishments.

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