Brad G.
Yelp
It started out as any other night. I'm attending an event, hanging with friends, drinking beer, eating burgers, commenting on other friend's check-ins(that are there and sitting as close to the speakers as they can) and having a good time. Oh... haha. This was at Goodwood by the way.
Me, my lovely, and some awesome friends decided to move the get-together to Taj. We hadn't been there but they are practically regulars. The Taj experience started off great and I'll still say this is a fairly decent place if you're there from 4-8PM. The bartenders were friendly and attentive. The prices were fair.
The clock strikes 9ish and things start to get weird.
I don't want to say the owner was just there. He was there. Very there. Loud. Obnoxious. Most of the people that came into our conversation path wanted to mention how they were best friends with the owner. (Dude/Dudette-I give zero cares about you knowing the owner-Find something else to brag about). The vibe quickly went downhill. Luckily this wasn't a repeat SET experience(see that review from me) but it was still an experience where I felt out of place.
I've been to many bars and this isn't a bar where "everybody knows your name" or well... errr... maybe it is a bar where everybody knows everyone's name if they're a regular and they proceed to pretend like the rest of the world(bar) doesn't matter. Maybe it was a weird night. I'm not sure but it didn't seem like the typical bar experience.
The funny thing is that when we arrived, there was a crowd. Maybe a crowd of 15-20 people. It didn't take long until 2-3 people checked out for the evening... and most of the rest of the crowd followed suit. It cleared out and down to a small group of maybe 6-10 people fast(including the owner, bartenders, and karaoke master).
I didn't want to mention this but there was a moment where the owner ordered food for the bar... or so we thought. Don't worry... I'm not complaining about not being offered food as I had already had food that evening. The food was in common areas and honestly... taking up half of the bar. There was plenty of food to feed the entire bar three times over but it was clear that the food was only for certain people. It was just weird.
That bar is so small that it really put off a vibe. Oh... ok, the owner ordered plenty of food. Oh, there's enough for everyone? Oh, but only certain people are welcomed to it. Gee... thanks for the hospitality. It was enough to make me not want to go back.
The atmosphere wasn't hostile but I hate to think of tourists visiting, going here, and being surrounded by that type of vibe. There are a lot of places that are pure-Louisville and this isn't one.
The other part of that is the 8 PM-10:30 PM crowd seemed like a crowd that you would find at a bar at 2 AM. Everyone was blitzed by that time. Yeah.. we're at a bar and that comes with the territory, but this was a step above intoxicated for a Thursday night at that early in the night.
So far, I've loved everything in NuLu, but this is one sore spot that I'll never look at the same again.