My expectations were almost as great as my disappointment.
My wife and me took some friends out last night for dinner and cocktails after. This is the place we landed for drinks. Our waitress was a total sweetheart and made sure we were up to date on the cocktail list and told us her favorites too. We were celebrating with a bride-to-be and after a couple drinks I decided to go to the bar and buy a couple of Woodford Reserve's for her and myself. A patron at the bar had a big beard and he looked like one of my friends from LA so I started stupid bar small talk about my buddy, who he looked exactly like btw. This guy tells me he hasn't been helped but he was just staring at the bar so I said:
ME: "I always wait for the second a bartender isn't busy and then look them in the eyes and order my drink."
At this point I saw a bartender who wasn't doing anything and I asked him to get this guy a drink when he had a moment. At this, the bartender looked offended for some reason like I had committed a crime in front of everyone. After the bartenders strange reaction to my request the patron looks down at the bar and tells me in a very harsh tone:
BEARD GUY: "You are way too aggressive man."
I was a little taken back because I had only displayed the exact method of ordering drinks that I have done for years all over the country and I have only been treated with total respect and niceness in those other situations. It was at this moment that I knew I had entered some sort of hipster paradox where time and space stood still. It was honestly bizarre from that moment on and got even stranger as the night went on.
I turned my back to the beard guy and asked 2 sweet ladies on my opposite side how their margaritas were incase my group would like to know later. Well when the ladies walk off, beard guy really "aggressively" asks me:
BEARD GUY: "Did you just call me a pussy to those girls?! Or a fucking pussy or something like that?!"
(SIDE NOTE: total pussy move.)
ME: "No. I asked if their margaritas were good dude. lol"
At this moment I was totally transported to an alternate dimension because another bartender, lets call him Tom Cruise, who had not been behind the bar past this point walks straight up to me and looks me right in the eyes. I think, "wow, my cue to finally order and get the hell outta here." Nope. I begin to order my 2 woodford reserve's when this clown blatantly adverts his attention to BEARD GUY and asks him:
TOM CRUISE: "Have you been helped sir?"
ME: "Yeah he just got his order taken"
TOM CRUISE: "I wasn't speaking with you." (shitty tone)
ME: ?!
After some real weirdness with me saying things like "I was just trying to help dude." and him and the BEARD GUY offering up their opinion of why I am being "aggressive" (No joke the beard guy said the word aggressive like 8 times and then Tome Cruise started saying it...They were super aggressive about using that word). Anyway, after that weirdness I got my 2 drinks went to the table. Instantly thought about what just happened and then took the drinks back. When I put the drinks back on the bar I was upset and told them they were being ass holes and they ruined my drinking mood lol (I probably sounded like an idiot too lol).
Just when this little sideways story couldn't get any more bizarre, it did. The manager or whoever thinks they can do things like this, went to my wife and 3 other girls in our group and told them we had to leave. THEY KICKED US OUT! LOL. No joke that was like the most insane thing anyone could have done. It was here that me and my wife told the waitress that she was totally awesome and we had NO problems until I went to the bar and they were rude. Well here comes Tom Cruise again and he is trying to tell everyone how...yep you guessed it "aggressive" I was. I looked this guy straight in the eyes and told him exactly what happened and why he was wrong. He of course was shocked. We paid and got the hell outta there.
Listen this was a totally stupid, long and drawn-out story but it is true 100% and I promise I have a point.
I'm sure aside from Beard guy, Tom Cruise, the original gasping bartender who wouldn't take an order and whatever person decided they could kick my party out of the bar....Aside from all those people the atmosphere was nice. Industrial yet modern and the cocktails had the same feel old meets new and new takes on classic favorites. Booths were tan leather against the brick. Very cool place visually. The bad taste in my mouth wasn't from the food or cocktails.
No amount of facade could make these bartenders look cool. When you have a concept for a speakeasy that is supposed to be a nice chill hang spot in one of the most chill towns in the world, the first thing to do is make sure you don't hire fuckers who are opposite of that.
Overall, I'm sure this place will thrive. It will not be because of my business.
- Someone concerned for humanity read more