Svend E.
Yelp
This isn't a review for the food or drinks ('cuz, you see, we weren't allowed inside).
My friend's MFA program had their graduation show recently and decided to meet here afterwards to celebrate.
We arrived around 9:30. At the door, a youngish male bouncer -- we learned his name, but let's call him N. -- in a split second, unaccountably, told my friend she 'seemed tipsy' and he wouldn't allow her inside.
This judgment comes across as more bizarre when one learns my friend is a 32 year old Asian woman -- incidentally, who can hold her liquor pretty well, but that's neither here nor there -- who had had 1.5 drinks over the course of five hours up until that point.
Anyone who has any experience with imbibery, or daresay anyone in their right mind, wouldn't have considered her drunk, let alone too inebriated to enter a bar. What caused the faulty snap judgment?
We were taken aback, and tried calmly to reason with him (and eventually somewhat less calmly). I (and she) explained it was her grad school celebration and all her classmates were inside; she'd had 1.5 drinks; she was a damn grown woman; and so on. Hell, give her a breathalyzer; you'd find her well under regulation.
Clearly, your initial assessment was highly inaccurate; however, as a thinking human being, you can reassess and reconsider.
Latterly, just to be able to see her classmates, my friend even suggested she could go in and not drink, just have snacks.
Mulishly, the bouncer wouldn't budge.
I expressed (diplomatically enough) I'd never come across a decision so seemingly arbitrary, inane, and unfair at a bar, and -- the situation was riling me up enough to leave a negative review online.
Quoth N: "See if I care. Doesn't affect me one way or the other. I still get paid tonight."
Sheeeeate. I asked to speak to the manager. After all, my friend was pointlessly being turned away from her own grad show afterparty, and she couldn't very well ask 40 people to move to another bar.
Shortly the manager came out, we reiterated the whole situation; the manager actually admitted that my friend didn't seem drunk at all, but said she 'had to support her staff, and would stick with the decision.' We were like: how can you justify this? She: once a decision is made, you have to back up your staff, sorry.
Suffice it to say, I am now writing this negative review, as I said I would, and my friend wasn't able to attend her grad show afterparty due to some intensely mindless, boorish, and backwards impulsivity and reasoning.
One might think the decision involved some subconscious racial discrimination on the bouncer's part. I mean, my friend was the only non- 'white' person entering while we were there. Well, probably not -- but who knows.
To invoke the figure of Anthony Bourdain somewhat randomly (on my mind recently) -- maybe among celebrated culinary and service industry figures, the one to extend staff the most respect and leeway -- given his integrity and acumen, even he, N., even he would find your conduct in this instance reproachable and disgraceful, boot your ass out on the street, compel you to live and experience for some years more, and finally, finally, if at all possible, come around and actually be prepared to make sensible and human-centric decisions.
Clearly, based on some recent reviews, this isn't a one-off, but a pattern of behavior propelled and supported by management.
And to the management, who may want to chime in with a rebuttal, I'll say this: no, there aren't two perspectives here; in no way, shape, or form was my friend drunk, or even tipsy; plainly, a rash and careless decision was made, which you then thoughtlessly (though in some oblique way nobly) doubled down on.
Yes, last I checked, sure, any private establishment *can* turn anyone away for any reason. Most don't because they don't want to lose business and earn a bad reputation... And, sure, a bar ought to turn away or throw out someone if they're so drunk they pose a danger to themselves or others or pose a great distraction... Otherwise--isn't getting tipsy or drunk, you know, kinda the point of bars, their bread and butter. And, as every onlooker, as well as all my friend's classmates, would easily attest, she wasn't even tipsy.
I'm shook, y'all... A grave injustice has been done!
Yet: just a 'first world problem.' Worse things have happened in history.
Judging by some of the more recent reviews -- this place seems to be developing a worse reputation, especially due to management and some staff, and this review adds to the growing pile.