Birthday Dinner @ Roost

We had a wonderful dinner tonight celebrating Becky's birthday. A few days ago we decided to have our dinner at Roost on Niagara Street and I made online reservations for 6:30 pm. We have had this restaurant on our list to checkout for several years. It first opened in 2015 and always had some odd hours. Previously for some occasion we tried but couldn't get reservations there. We made a couple of other attempts and then the pandemic set in and we stopped going out much.

It took us a good twenty minutes to get over there because of the evening traffic. We hadn't been over to Niagara Street for some time and we were surprised at the street renovations. We drove by the restaurant initially because we missed the very tiny sign. We circled back and parked about a block away.

The restaurant was very large and roomy. We had a nice table that overlooking the bar and the open kitchen area. It also had a nice view toward the river and the sunset. We sat at our table for about two and a half hours. We had a great dinner and the staff was wonderful. We had a fantastic time.

The menu was terrific and everything looked good. We started off with a beet and goat cheese terrine with lemon and pistachio. It was amazingly good. Then we had a margherita pizza. It was one of the best pizzas ever and it had a strong pepper taste too. We also liked that it was served at our table already cut up into slices and nicely arranged on the plate. The main dish was a Hot & Sour Shrimp and it was very spicy. Very Tasty too. We loved it.

On our way over to the restaurant a little after six we got a video call from Sean and Ashley and Andrew. We told them we were in the car and on our way to a restaurant for our birthday dinner. They were calling to wish Becky a happy birthday and asked us where we were going. We told the Roost and our reservation was for 6:30. After a few minutes we all said goodbye and about fifteen minutes we were at the restaurant.

As we walked by the windows of the restaurant looking for the door the hostess in the window waved for us to back the way we came to enter the building. We walked back and found the proper door which didn't have a sign. We walked up to her desk and gave our reservation name to which she immediately said Happy Birthday to Becky. She sat us at our table and Becky asked about the birthday greeting and I replied that I did not put that info into the online reservation form. I didn't know how they knew. I speculated that perhaps it was in our reservation system profiles because we've used it many times before on many occasions.

A little while later after we put our food and drink order in our server announced that Sean and Ashley wished us a wonderful time at our birthday dinner and that they were paying for a round of drinks and an appetizer. It turns out they called the restaurant right after our video chat and arranged this birthday surprise and that is how the hostess was able to greet Becky with a happy birthday!

I had a couple of glasses of Malbec red wine and a draft Collective Arts Ransack the Universe IPA.