Came in on a Saturday for the $15 cocktails, left an hour later when they turned on the soft core…read moreporn at 6 pm.
Is the Hotsy Totsy Club a secret porno theater or is the owner just trying to make his female patrons feel uncomfortable? According to the too cool for school bar tenders, it's his choice to play soft core porn on the TVs behind the bar. "Well, we do play soft core porn," she said when I complained.
So, hate to break it but I'm a middle aged white lady, who is only now learning that people like the bartenders at the Hotsy Totsy Club in Albany really hate middle aged white women! The lady bartender, who is not of the sisterhood, was not interested in answering my questions about the $15 cocktail menu. She was over it. She was too busy talking to the boys at the other side of the bar. It's okay girl, I get it, you want them to like you. But I'm about to drop $100 at a dive bar, so can you answer my questions without a side of attitude? Will you treat me with some shred of dignity? No? Too much to ask? And girl, those guys don't actually respect you, they just like your curly hair and pretty face. Don't sell out other women because I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but, you will be my age one day and unless we change things now, you aren't going to like the world you're aging into.
So there we are, me, my friend and my husband, enjoying well made drinks (they were good even if the bar tender was a jerk), watching what was on the tv behind the bar. It was the 1988 Run DMC-Beastie Boys joint called Harder than Leather. We were enjoying it... until 15 minutes into the movie when the male bartender comes in to work at 6 pm on a Saturday, and turned OFF Harder than Leather, and turned ON soft core porn. Within minutes, I was drinking a $15 cocktail in a crowded bar while being forced to deal with a woman being fingered on screen.
Before I left, I told the boy bartender that I thought it was really a bad look to be playing soft core porn in a bar three weeks after the Cornell/ Phi Chi Rape case broke - that this is Berkeley (Albany, close enough!) and women should be able to feel safe in a bar and not be confronted with their own dehumanization.
But here's where it got really weird: when I attempted to speak directly to the boy bartender, he wouldn't answer me, and instead, the lady bar tender jumped in and defended him, energetically. She said he was just doing his job and that the OWNER actually picks out the porn to play every night, and that he was a good boy for doing his job without taking any accountability for his actions. She wasn't going to let me talk to her good boy, who btw was genuinely acting like a child, as he wouldn't look at me except with a sneer on his face. (He had one of those faces you just want to punch.) His keeper, the lady bar tender, told me the owner is the one who picks out the porns to play at the bar where no one can change the channel. It's the owner's choice.
And don't give me any bull about soft core porn being edgy or artistic - this is 2026. A bar owner playing soft core porn depicting naked and semi-naked women being fingered by fully dressed men on the only screen on one side of the bar isn't edgy - no, it creates a sense of entitlement to men and dehumanization to women, and in this climate post Jane Doe v Cornell, post Shane Gillis calling women who work out whores, post Trump grab em by the pussy, post capitalist patriarchal bs - well that's a choice. He made a bold choice and I think the owner must hate women because how else can I explain such a hostile experience? How cynical must he be to think it's perfectly fine to play pornography at a bar full of women at any point but especially now? Forcing your patrons to watch porn is only good if you're a pornography purveyor and not, say, a purveyor of expensive intoxicating liquors.
And let's be real - the cool 20 something kids who go to the Hotsy Totsy, they can't afford drinks like women my age can. We can drop $100 on a few cocktails and not bat an eye. And yet you're playing the porn for who, exactly? The pos young dudes who buy PRB on tap and then go off and assault women? Is that your clientele? Is that your legacy? You'd rather send the message that adult women are unwelcome here? Is that it? You don't want my money? That's fine by me.
So, if you're looking for an expensive but well made drink, rude bartenders, and forced pornography, boy do I have a place for you. If on the other hand, you'd rather not engage with the dehumanization of women, if you'd rather spend money while being treated like a human and not with abject contempt, then you might want to stay away.
Needless to say, I won't be back. I think it's gross and everyone who works there needs to really examine themselves and their behavior.