Iron Horse Owner Shoots Back at Yelper: ’You Are Terrible at Finding Bars’

If you're looking for a quiet place to talk, Financial District dive bar The Iron Horse — where it's not unusual for employees to use a swing above the bar — might not be the place. A one-star Yelp review for the bar complaining about noise and the bar owner's response to it went viral after getting posted to Reddit. The Yelper Megan complained that she went at 3 p.m. one afternoon, and it was too loud to hear her friends talk.

But Iron Horse is a bar that advertises itself as loud and divey, and bar owner Zbigniew Szymczyk made sure that she knew that, going as far as to investigate other places that she'd reviewed. She had mostly reviewed quiet cafes. "I give you 1 star as you are terrible at finding bars and restaurants that suit your tastes," he writes.

It's not the first time Szymczyk has taken the time to respond to negative reviews on Yelp. A reviewer named Tessa wrote a one-star review in July last year, saying she was disturbed by behavior like a woman licking whipped cream off of her boyfriend's chest on the bar. Szymcyk responded: "Let me guess, you also went to McDonalds once, and gave them a 1 star review cause they didn't serve any poached eggs over lox and hollandaise sauce for breakfast?" And in another one-star review where the writer says his food order took more than an hour, Szymczyk responded saying that he actually examined the video footage of the experience. "You grossly exaggerated the amount of time it took for your food to come out," the owner writes. "Your party wasn't even in the bar for an hour."

Yelper Megan, who has since deleted her Iron Horse review, also complained about "terrible" service and food. Still, Iron Horse overall has four stars and 243 reviews, many from people who enjoyed the bar's theatrics. "We have 4 stars on Yelp, but it's not because our food will knock your socks off," Szymczyk writes in his response. "The 4 stars are there because most of our customers come in looking for a fun time."