Ambience, craft cocktails, music, happy hour, excellent service and food, wait, more on the food below. We parked on a busy Saturday in Healdsburg. All I wanted was to hear live Jazz @ruthahlers and not excess chattering and I found it. We were graciously welcomed with a door opening from a manager. We entered the bar and since it was an unusual cool evening I was glad the band was indoors. We sat down, perused the menu and ordered our drinks from the happy hour menu, a dirty martini that was smooth, a well balanced vodka ratio. The other drink was a gin & tonic the gin was from @Griffodistillery in Petaluma another winning combo. Kudos to the bartender a true mixologist, they know how to make a tasty & well balanced drink.
Now for the food. We decided to order a burger, something to keep the alcohol in check. They don't mess around with portions. It's described as 8oz of beef, now according to my calculations that's 1/2 pound. We decided to share the burger. It came with perfectly,thin sliced fries, I liked that they weren't overly salted and condiment to add as you pleased. The waitress brought us a knife & extra plate. As we slice into the plump, visually perfect, charred burger, it was raw inside. Now it's pretty dark in the bar, but we could see this bright red meat, we even turned the phone camera on it. This is totally unacceptable and dangerous, if we didn't slice this burger in half we would have chomped down on it. I don't know how this could come out of the @drycreekkitchen. They need to put/buy/use a thermometer into those burgers and cook til 160 degrees. We returned it and asked for a cooked burger, waitress obliged, we kept the fries to munch on. We didn't get our new burger for over 25 minutes by then we were hungry so I decided to order the burrata plate. She took the order then came back to say it was sold out. 5 minutes later the perfectly cooked burger came out and it could be eaten.
The music and ambience was so nice it was a good distraction from the burger fiasco. We filled our belly with cooked burger and drink. I decided to satisfy my sweet tooth and order dessert, the olive oil cake. Waitress took the order and again it was sold out so I went with the Lemon bar recommendation. It was a sliver of bar but nicely presented.
In summary, it's a beautiful lounge bar, superb drinks, service and the music is a bonus. Food selection is very limited, though they are open during the dining hours. I think they should reimagine the food menu for the bar. Small bites, for those that want to stay and enjoy the music or pre-dinner pit stop. Make good use of that kitchen. read more