Reposting this review because my original was removed. In October 2024, staff at Tootsies Orchid…read moreLounge put me out on the street alone, intoxicated, and without my phone. I still believe the way they handled it was reckless and dangerous.
My friends and I were waiting in a long line for the women's restroom. I really had to use the bathroom and was leaning against the wall when the male bathroom attendant offered, unprompted, to let us use the empty men's stall. We accepted.
Moments later, someone began pounding on the door, shaking the handle, and yelling at us to get out. No one identified themselves, though I asked who it was and asked them to stop. I assumed it was an aggressive drunk patron, so I yelled back, asking them to stop. I would never have said what I did if I'd known it was staff. When I opened the door, two bouncers and a security guard were waiting.
I apologized and explained right away that the attendant had invited us in. He looked directly at me and denied it. The bouncers then accused us of sneaking into the men's room and refused to hear anything else.
As they escorted us out, I told the bouncer my phone was at our table with friends and asked to get it. He grabbed my arm, pushed me toward a different exit, and told me I'd have to get it "another way." I was put outside at night, impaired, with no phone and no way to call a ride, two miles from where I was staying, in an area that wasn't safe to walk alone. I got home safely only because the friends with me had their phones, though they didn't have the phone numbers of the people I was with that had my phone; after many Instagram DMs and calls, we finally were able to get their attention. Even while we waited outside, the bouncers kept taunting us.
This happened just months after Riley Strain, a 22-year-old college student, was kicked out of a bar a few blocks away on Broadway. He left alone, his friends couldn't reach him, and he was found dead in the Cumberland River two weeks later. His death made national news and put a spotlight on how Nashville bars remove intoxicated patrons. Tootsies staff did the same thing to me anyway: they separated me from my group and my phone and pushed me out alone. The difference between my night and his is that my friends happened to have their phones.
The next day, I walked past the same attendant in the alley beside the bar. He apologized to me. That apology confirmed what I said from the start, but it came a day too late to matter that night.
Bars have to remove people sometimes, I understand that. There is a responsible way to do it, and putting a young woman out alone, impaired, and unable to contact anyone is not it. Staff never identified themselves, never let us explain, used physical force, and refused a simple request that would have taken thirty seconds (letting my grab my phone). After what happened to Riley Strain, there is no excuse for any Broadway bar to still handle removals this way. Any woman thinking of going here should know how this venue treats someone in a vulnerable situation.