We typically go to this bar whenever we're in from out of town. I grew up in the area, and my mother still lives right down the road. However, after the service tonight, we will NEVER set foot in this place again. The bartender has never been overly friendly, but tonight she was downright unfriendly. I'm not sure why, but right from the start she was unwelcoming. Maybe it's because it took us a few minutes to order drinks? We were getting the pool game set up first. Maybe because the first two of us to order drinks were just drinking soda? Maybe because we weren't regulars? I don't know the answer, but she acted very annoyed to be serving us. I just thought whatever and we went on playing pool. Then my cousin went up to order his drink. He's 22 years old and visiting from Ca. She told him they didn't serve out of state licenses, which I knew wasn't true since I had an out of state license. So I went up to ask her about it. I was very polite and simply asked her if they really didn't serve out of state licenses. She immediately got defensive, which I understand. She's probably used to people being rude. She told me that my cousins license seemed flimsy and he didn't look 21. She said it was her right not to serve him. I said I understood. I explained that he was my cousin from Cali and I could vouch for his age. She said that wasn't good enough. I asked if she would accept a birth certificate? My aunt probably would have sent me a copy of it. She said no. I said okay and walked away. Throughout the entire exchange, I never raised my voice or was rude, even though her tone was less than desirable. I probably didn't have a smile on my face, but I was disappointed. This is when things went south. Instead of letting the whole thing go, she walked over to a very intoxicated blond woman named Sara. They started gossiping about the incident. The blond women repeatedly calling me a bitch while her partner (a very nice man we were actually in the middle of a pool game with) tried to quiet her down. I walked over to the bar, not really sure what I was going to say, and confused as to why any of this was even still being talked about when when we hadn't made a big stink. I said something along the lines of, "Hey, just so you know, I'm 44 years old and have no reason to lie about my cousins age. He really is 22" I basically wanted them to know I was being honest and not trying to cause a problem. Instead of answering in kind, the drunk women just started yelling at me. I was done. I am not into drama or fighting with strangers at bars. I turned around, grabbed my quarters off the pool table, and told my group that we were gonna go somewhere else. That's when the bartender yelled at me, again quite rudely, about taking other people's quarters. I looked down and apparently the drunk girls boyfriend had put two quarters down on top of my two quarters. Why he set them on top of mine, no idea? I apologized and placed the 2 quarters that weren't mine back down. I didn't feel quite desperate enough to steal $.50 We then proceeded to leave, even though one of the regulars we'd been playing with asked us to stay.... because once again we weren't being rowdy, we were spending money, and we'd been polite to everyone we met. I thought the way the bartender handled everything was very unprofessional. Even one friendly word or smile during our stay would have gone a long way. But going over to loudly and rudely gossip with an intoxicated customer, encouraging her to get more and more out of control, is the reason I am writing this review. As a bartender, you should be trying to defuse situations not heighten them. We ended up at the Hotel Richland Bar, which was awesome and is where we'll be spending our money from now on. read more
