John B.
Yelp
I fully expected that this morning I would be updating my review of @mosphere, raving about how wonderful they are. How sad that I'm going in the opposite direction.
Last night was the latest in a series of Yelp Chicago Gay Nights. I chose @mosphere for the event because of their widely advertised Sabbath Stripper Sunday, with $1 well drinks, $5 martinis, and male dancers at 9pm. Imagine my surprise when I walked in the door at 7 o'clock to discover that they were hosting a benefit for Season of Concern, featuring storytellers from Serendipity Theater. And imagine my combined embarrassment and annoyance when they started scolding us for being too loud.
Now both of these are admirable organizations, and I can understand performers wanting some quiet and attention while they are working. And if had had any idea there were going to be storytellers at @mosphere, I would never have scheduled an event there. But at no time over the past month since Gay Night was planned was there any mention of a benefit on the same night. Their Midsommarfest schedule was clearly posted; this week's "Club Manhunt" has been up for weeks; even the weekly trivia contest is listed. But the "please be quiet because people will be reading their stories" event? Not a sign. This, in spite of the fact the @mosphere's website has an Events page, which links to their Google Calendar of scheduled events. Oops. The woman from Serendipity Theater did tell me that the information was posted on their website, as well as on the Season of Concern website. So if planned to have dollar drinks and strippers at Serendipity Theater, I would have been fully warned.
About those dollar drinks. No dollar drinks. When I went to the bar, I saw the special listed as $3 drinks. When I asked the bartender about it -- the surly bartender who took his surly time getting to me, despite the fact that I was clearly the only person at the bar looking to get a drink -- he said, "Oh yeah, we don't do that any more." To which I replied, "Better change the website, then." Because it's up there, clear as day. On the freaking home page. To which he replied, "It's on the website?" *sigh* As it turns out, the $3 price is a tremendous discount from the regular $4 price. And if these drinks were any more than $4, I'd be finding another bar.
At this point, you may be wondering why I even give @mosphere 3 stars.
In the end, it all turned out okay. The stories ranged from okay to pretty good, and most people missed the worst one, which was the first one. By 9pm, we were allowed to talk and act like we were in a bar. About the same time, the nice bartender started working, which was a huge relief. And some time between 9 and 10 -- 9pm in gay time -- the strippers started working. Well, you can't really call them strippers, since they started as undressed as they were going to get, and you can't really call them dancers, because even if they wanted to dance, their platform is about the size of a coffee table. But they were all reasonably attractive and 2 of the 3 were actually friendly and in a bar like @mosphere, you take what you can get. Which kind of sums up the whole experience.