Lucas L.
Yelp
It has probably been 10 years since I was at a J. Alexander's. Last night's extremely middling and flawed experience will ensure it's another decade before I bother to give them my money again (assuming they even survive that long at this point).
Let's get the redeeming things out of the way: the drinks were pretty bulky in size, which helps justify the pricing in most nicer bars like this purports to be. We had a sushi roll, which was also pretty tasty.
(We're a couple consisting of a very experienced service industry person and a career marketer, so we do try to be objective, but...)
When we first arrived at about 9:30pm, we were told they would be cleaning up the bar in front of two available seats, so we hovered a moment to let them. The initial attempt was lame, and I joked about how it looked like a toddler had sat there before us and I'll let them make another pass at a better wipe-down. Once it was clean, we crammed ourselves into the very tight space provided by their obvious corporate greed level of excessive seating for the amount of available room.
We were eventually greeted (not quick enough for a bar packed with 4 bartenders and a standard level of busy on a Friday evening). No water was set down in that greeting - which is just a basic move to leave out. We ordered, and it was mostly ok - except for having our drinks reversed, which turned out to be a sign of things to come.
We noticed we were not getting much check-in attention, and the bartenders all seemed much more distracted by doing all their side work, washing glasses, etc...
Our bartender never asked for another sale with additional drinks, never asked about dessert (which I was waiting to get a chance to order), etc. Just very aloof. I had to flag her down for a water somewhere along the way.
It was just after 10pm, and SUDDENLY, a ton of bright lights came on over the bar like an operating room. No fade in, nothing gradual, just BAM! bright-ass light. Someone mentioned it was closing time, and I asked... and it turns out they close at 10pm.
On a Friday night.
IN NASHVILLE.
I expressed how surprising that was and how we had no idea that was even possible in 2023 in one of America's top destination cities. So much for dessert, then...
We never heard any of the massive population of bartenders make a "last call" either. No ask for more food selling, no "hey the kitchen is closing," nothing. Just all of a sudden, bright GTFO lighting at about 10:26pm.
Those hours are clearly set by corporate greed. There is no shortage of workers, obviously. This seems like a choice made by people that just don't want to pay the utility bills than to have hours that are more becoming of a world-class city. When we left Nashville almost 3 years ago, we ended up surprised at some of the short hours in Grand Rapids, MI, but understood we came from a bigger, hip place. But to come back and visit and find these pathetic suburban hours at a location in Midtown is really silly.
I've attached a photo, as well, of the horrid state of the floor around the bar area. The whole thing looked like a kid's party had just happened. For all the obsession over cleaning and dinking around while not checking on customers, this crew sure didn't care to tidy anything outside the bar.
One more thing: I noticed the crowd was heavily skewed toward non-white folks, which I thought was super cool, given that this was one of the whitest places in town all through my youth and earlier adulthood. But given their scandal in 2019, I am wondering if some of these dismissive attitudes toward hospitality and these short hours might be informed by some kind of racial bias in business/management decisions.
Anyway. Tipped about $2 due to the salvageable positive of the sushi and drinks, but I'm not sure the crew there deserves any tip at all based on how vastly under-par this was.
