Taboo Lounge

I’ve been back a few times and while Taboo always gives me a good night out, the service has been a little lacking. It’s never a matter of waiting on drinks, but hookah refills and sometimes even getting hookah can be a wait. Still recommended though. I was there just the other night with friends and we had a blast.

The service is bad if you sit in the back. $ 20 for a pitcher of blue moon? You’re kidding right? Horrible. The music is good the hooka is cheap. But you will never see your waitress.
:BATHROOM ALERT:
DISGUSTING. Also watch your step one of the bathrooms have a step for no damn reason.
If you’re going to have a back area attend to your customers. Also if you have a credit card without a chip in it don’t expect them to use your card. They will give it back to you and tell you to use the ATM.

I will never come here again. The bartenders are rude ! I came here for a drink because I missed my train. Happy hour is at 4 pm I got here at 3:53 which is cool. I wanted a drink so paying regular price is fine. However the wine I ordered was empty. She sent a Barback to get a bottle, took about 10 mins to get a bottle. Ok now I drink the wine, and it is hot. White wine is hot! I ask for ice cubes. I say hey, «this is happy right now»? (It’s about 4:45), and she says yes. I said ok one more, btw is this wine a happy hour wine? She said yes, but my first one wasn’t because she charged me for it when I came in. Not when I got the wine. Lol ok whatever, but she wanted to argue with me, and I’m like #2 Customer in the bar. I said I’m not trying to be a jerk, but a good bartender would have been like, hey happy hour is in 5 min, or I’m sorry would you like a shot on me, just I’m sorry would have worked for me. Then I go to pay, she says it’s a 20.00 minimum for credit card. My tab for 2 drinks was 11.76 not bad at all. I would have drank more had she played nice. So I say we’ll all I have is my credit card, and 1. that’s against the law (I called American Express) 2. Um, well I have no cash, and again you should have told me this. Snatches my card, and proceeds to talk about me again. Needless to say there goes the 20.00 tip she would have gotten from me. On top of that she was talking about me to her co-​worker in Russian..

They had good music and the hookah was OKAY. I ordered a Mojito, I couldn’t even finish it. The mint was placed on top (not mixed in) and my friend’s margarita even was horrible. The prices for drinks were good. If I ever come back I’ll make sure to order beer.

I enjoyed this place. Came in here after drinking and shopping.
The people here were so nice. They were attentive and came to us often to check up on us. I felt like they didn’t judge us at all for anything and genuinely wanted to serve you well. They were chill.
We did the hookah which was one of the best hookahs I’ve ever done. We did the taboo flavor and it was a mix of a fruit and mint. You can definitely taste the mixture and I enjoyed it. We went during happy hour and we did the hookah for $ 25
We also got the Philly cheesesteak. The reason it wasn’t five stars was because of this. It was basic and small. The cheese looked like it was one of those singles you get at the grocery store. It was good but not a great cheesesteak.
Recommend this place. Would come back again

The place is small with only about 10 seating areas designated outside of the bar area. It was a little crowded when I went so if you came at a later time, finding a seat and table was impossible. I saw a couple of parties leave because of this. The hookah flavor I had wasn’t all that great however the drinks definitely made up for that. Since it’s a small venue, ventilation isn’t that great so it got pretty hot and stuff fairly quickly. The staff was very nice and accommodating to everyone’s needs. Not the best place, also not the worst. Great if it’s your first stop for the night.

Esq and I stopped in here for a drink prior to a surprise party we were heading to. It was early (around 6:00 PM on a Saturday) therefore it was pretty quiet… until a homeless-​looking man sat at the bar, ordered a Guinness, and proceeded to have auditory hallucinations for the next 20 minutes. Ahhh, good times.
Prices are definitely on the inexpensive side for this area. My glass of Pinot was $ 6 and his Tito’s and Red Bull was around the same. No DJ here… only the Touch Tunes «jukebox», if you will.
We knew it was time to go when Mister Guinness started begging the Touch Tunes device to play him some Michael Jackson (for free, we presume). We almost wanted to stay to see how that panned out, but we had to «beat it» if we were going to make it to the surprise party.
You liked that Michael Jackson reference, didn’t you? I couldn’t resist.

This hookah bar is cool if you’re just looking to have a good time with a few friends because IT’S NOT A BIG VENUE. The food is served in really small portions, which is cool if you’re on a diet.
EAT BEFORE YOU GO OR HAVE DINNER AFTER.
They have a TELEVISIONS so you can watch the basketball game to past time. Then there’s the high tech jukebox but you have to share it.
Taboo is like a a dive bar with a Sofa, that it.
REALLY GREAT DRINKS AND PLEASANT ENVIRONMENT.

There’s nothing to this bar but a jukebox! Came for one drink because it was kind of lame and small. I rather go to tempest across the street. The bartender didn’t really care to interact. The only time she smiled was when she picked up her tip when we were leaving.

This place is a great with not too many people and the prices are great for after hours I found this place while on vacation and the people working are awesome not too pushy but the check up on you and if you need anything that don’t mind getting it for you I would recommend this place…

Beautiful and engaging bartenders, a great vibe and convenient location… What more can you ask for? Been coming here for the past few years and it never disappoints. The food has had its ups and down but a reasonably priced bar menu has all your happy hour staples. Over 25 flavored of hookah, comfortable seating and a newly renovated outdoor garden makes this the number one go to after a long day of work for me and the colleagues. Got a train to catch? They are just one block from Penn and will always get you out quick so you can keep boozing on the LIRR.
Long story short, come by, have some drinks and enjoy a cozy atmosphere with great folks that’s got you covered lunch hour till after hours.

They didn’t tell us it was fake hookah. Tried to pass it along as the real thing. The service was slow. Creepy patrons.

Great Spot!
My boyfriend and I we’re visiting the city for a few days and our hotel was super close to here! We stumbled upon it one night after going to the Empire State Building and I am glad we came in.
All the bartenders were great and super friendly! The beers were about $ 6 which i thought was a great deal. There were some locals in there that got drinks made for them right away which was great to see how friendly and what a great relationship they build with theirs regulars.
They have hookah and one night we were there they had karaōke !! Kiera was great! She took care of us every night and truly was interested in our visit and how it’s been going.
Thanks Taboo for the great couple of nights!

If I ever wanted to be a 16 y/​o and smoke hookah or hit on strange bartenders without a visa and drink overpriced beer with weird tourist this would be my spot.
But sadly this place is hell on earth and I hope someone messages me when it closes.

visited this place everyday during my vacation. I did not find a problem with the place, staff were so friendly, I got talking to a couple of regulars/​locals and they were really friendly too. These reviews that days it creepy place etc make me laugh, it’s a local bar where regular working local people go after work to relax… hello!!! what we’re you expecting the ritz??? people should use their head and think where they are. I knew I wasnt going to get the ritz, but at same time I didn’t expect such a great experience at Taboo. THANK YOU TO THE STAFF AND THE LOCALS FOR BEING YOU AND NOT BEING FAKE. THANK YOU TABOO

Solid. Nothing wrong with this little bar. A hole in the wall, right by some delicous piizza places. I’ went in to grab a beer, and the prices were normal NYC happy hour prices $ 4-​$ 4.50 for a pint.
I went before a Madison Square Garden game, and was glad I did a little pre-​drinking here.
Good service. Clean. Convienant.

HAHA I’m reading these reviews and laughing at the ones that said there are creepy people here… it’s so true!
I love going to hookah places so my friend and I decided to check this place out after work one day. We go there and it’s relatively empty so we sit at the window in the front and order two glasses of wine plus hookah. So we start smoking our hookah and it’s incredibly harsh right off the bat. They don’t leave the tongs with the hookah so we kept having to look for the guy and tell him it was harsh and to move the coals around. Every time we did, he said he wouldn’t go far and to find him if we kept having a problem. We kept having that same problem and would look around for him and he was no where to be seen! We would take a couple puffs, need him to come back and have to wait 5 minutes and then flag him down, he would take a puff of our hookah (which was annoying– I swear he smoked ¹⁄₃ of it) and move the coals around, leave, and the whole thing would repeat. Finally after 3 times of this happening he said that the reason it kept doing this is because they DIDN’T HAVE REAL HOOKAH. It was really just like flavored herb that tasted like it was burning too quickly. Ummm WTF?! I love hookah, that was a deal breaker for me right there! Plus, the were charging the same price for flavored «herbs» as other places were charging for real hookah.
So during the middle of this whole hookah fiasco we were getting hungry and the place was getting busier. We decided to order another round plus chips and salsa. There was only one bartender and she was hard to flag down since it was getting busier. You can’t really go wrong with chips and salsa right? Wrong! The salsa seemed like it was from a can and just bland and unappetizing.
Now on to the funny part– there was definitely a weird crowd in there. This one guy who looked like a retarded Moby kept talking to us and wouldn’t get the hint to leave us alone. Now normally, I don’t mind random conversation, in fact I love it! But us females know that when you’re getting the creepy vibe you need to stay away.
After the whole hookah drama I definitely wouldn’t go back. You would think that with all the hookah issues we were having (we barely got to smoke it) they would offer to give us a new one, or remove it from the bill but nope, we paid full price. By that point I just wanted to leave the place and go somewhere else. I think it’s funny that they are known as a hookah place but don’t even have real hookah!

Seriously… this place should be called «creepy foreign grandpa», because that’s pretty much the gist of who was in there.
Stopped with friends for a cocktail before going to Madison Square Garden and quickly realized the mistake.
Adding insult to injury, it was over $ 100 for a few watery tasting drinks and two beers AND we got accosted by two smelly homeless guys that hover around their doorway begging.
Shitty experience to start an otherwise perfect night.
You’ve been warned.

The food is decent and the drinks are good.
The service however is lacking. The bartenders and kitchen staff spend a lot of time at one end of the bar or another smoking (with a middle-​aged white guy who appears to be an owner?). I’ve been here 3 times and the service has decreased each time. I’m actually sitting at the bar writing this now.
It took forever for her to take our food order and when my man finally cornered her, she took his order without even looking in my direction. We had to flag her down a second time.
After our food came, she didn’t check on us at all. Our glasses sat empty for at least 15 mins while we stared at the back of her head.
Oh well. Win some, lose some.

I came here for lunch yesterday around 1:00 PM. The Russian bartender was very friendly. I had ordered the chicken burger because I had seen it outside as a special. After I had placed my order I was asked if I wanted American cheese on the burger and if I wanted French fries. I declined the cheese but did get the fries.
The chicken burger was a breaded and fried boneless chicken cutlet. The lettuce and one slice of tomato was on the bottom of the chicken and ring of ketchup on the top part of the bun. The French fries had the skin and were nicely seasoned. There was a small dish of ketchup for dipping for the French fries.