If you’re lucky, you’ll never visit a bar like the Toronto locale my wife and I happened to wander into a short time ago. Actually, let me change that: not “wander into,” but “were sucked into.” Or “suckered.”
By outside appearance, it seemed like a decent enough place: lots of wood, clean look, a couple of dozen taps, a few of which were actually interesting, not noisy or particularly crowded. Then we entered.
Forget the five minutes it took for the otherwise entirely self-absorbed serving staff to notice us, despite our being two of the six people in the bar, AT the bar. Forget the televisions no one was watching, which drones on nonetheless. Forget the obnoxious, burping boob seated on down the bar, who later turned out to be an acquaintance of the bartender.
How about the bartender having no idea whether the hacker-Pschorr tap was lager or hefeweizen? Or even having the faintest clue what hefeweizen was?! To give her credit, she did offer me a taste to offset a bit her ignorance, and good that she did, too, since it turned out to be a rather brutally oxidized keg of hefeweizen. I chose the Headstrong Pale Ale instead, which was also oxidized, but much less so.
How about the bartender not knowing what Martini & Rossi red vermouth was? Or not being able to find it on the back bar despite my wife’s methodical directions? Hell, when Maggie said it was behind the Stoli, she couldn’t even find that!
How about the bartender returning to Maggie for instructions on how to build a vermouth and soda, and still getting it wrong? (Maggie was eventually served a pint glass – a pint glass!! – of vaguely rust-coloured soda. ) Then she charged extra for the soda!
Needless to say, we didn’t stay, didn’t even finish our drinks, in fact. We paid and cut our losses, only to be very cordially received as a most pleasant pub just a couple of blocks down the road. Far fewer taps, they had, but all I tried were in great condition, and although the food was mediocre, the service was endlessly friendly.
Like I noted at the outset, if you’re lucky you’ll never visit a bar like the first I described, but you probably will. There are just too many of the damnable places around.
