Adam R.
Yelp
I'm gonna break this down into location, drinking, and bar layout/experience.
Location:
This place is hidden away, and to my recollection there wasn't any real signage to point out where this place is. It's not really by anything else in the area, so if one of my friends hadn't wanted to go I would have never ended up here or thought about going here in the first place. However, I had heard some decent word of mouth, so I figured I'd give it a fair shot.
Drinking!:
No one was carded upon entering this place, which is kind of too laid-back for me. I'm not sure if that's just casual negligence or deliberate negligence, but either way they should fix that. Also, the drinks are expensive, but not South Beach expensive (at least when I went on a Friday night). A Heineken and a gin and tonic set me back about $24 including tip....which brings up my next point. The tip is already included in the bill, and they don't tell you, so some people may end up tipping twice which is incredibly awful, and frankly the bartenders didn't deserve it. The bar wasn't even that packed when we went and it still took over half an hour to get a drink. It got a little better as the night went on, but 15+ minute waits for a bar that wasn't that full was a little ridiculous.
Bar Layout/Experience:
This place has two stories, with the bar downstairs and the dancing area upstairs. Upstairs is pretty cool and they have display cases with (replica?) guns and grenades and other war paraphernalia, but they should also really have a bar up here too. It would help take some pressure off the downstairs bartenders who already seemed overwhelmed with even modest crowds. There's also a lot of seating which is good when you're just trying to relax instead of dance. The music was alright and a nice mix of stuff you'd probably hear on 97.3 (80's, 90's, 00's, some current stuff). They also had a Sylvester Stallone movie night that night, so his movies were playing on EVERY TV, which... was different, but unique I guess.
Conclusion:
Overall, it was just kind of a really average place. I could understand going here if you live around the area and are trying to avoid a crazy clubbing South Beach atmosphere, but other than that I have to imagine there are better options. If it was a little bit cheaper, and the service was a little bit better I would think about coming back, but those are things that generally get worse as a place gets older, so I have little hope for that. Oh well, at least I can say I tried to give this place a chance.