Arduino Uno + Ethernet Shield : 16x2 LCD Not Initializing
As suggested by user ben, the issue was that the ethernet shield was using pins that I was trying to use for the LCD.

On page here, the comment by user "njohnson" states that the shield uses all the digital pins except 1,2 and 8. 

Moving the LCD pins to the 6 analog pins (as outputs) solved the issue.