how do you spell cirrhosis?
G-i-n… or vodka considering the amount I drank last night. Smouie Kablooie was out on the town for a crazy Saturday night – despite our recent track record of spending the evenings as homebodies. Friends joined us at Bar Rouge last night for an evening of martinis. If you’ve never been, we definitely recommend it! It’s one of the few bars you can order a martini in without worrying if the bartender is going to give you a glass of watered down vermouth with a hint of something else that might be the top shelf vodka you ordered. Be sure to get there early if you go so you can grab a spot to lounge…
Another good thing about Bar Rouge is that it’s just around the corner from Dupont Circle. So we went to Cloud and that’s when the night took a bit of a downturn. After about an hour of dancing I decide that I’m going to buy a round of drinks. I ask the bartender for a set of Grey Goose and tonics. I watch as he finishes off the bottle on the first three glasses – and then chuckled to myself as he filled up the last two glasses with rail and handed them all to me as if nothing happened. “Way to lose your tip” I thought to myself as I but a big scratch mark through that part of my credit card receipt.
Believe it or not, the bartender actually seeks me out in the crowd and starts yelling at me about the tip! Yeah, yeah, I know that people work for tips in these places. I used to do the wait staff thing too. If he had said “Sorry we’re out of Grey Goose, do you mind?” – I would have been ok with it. But it’s just not kosher to try and pull a switcheroo on your customers… I say something to the effect of “I don’t tip guys who pour me rail and then charge me for top shelf.” We went back and forth on the issue for a few minutes and then the guy either decided to own up to it, or got tired of arguing with me over the music, and left… asshole…
Having consumed much alcohol by the end of the evening, we decided to try and preempt the impending hangover with some late night Korean food. Fortunately my better half was not drinking and could drive us to Yechon in Annandale. Nothing better than some extra spicy yuk kae jang at 3:00 AM to get you feeling right.
He poured your rail & charged you top shelf? I would’ve pushed the two drinks back at order time and told him Grey Goose isn’t spelled “V-O-L-K-O-F” What an ass.
The only think worse is the short pour. When they do a two or three count, not my preferred four or “here, have the bottle” count. No tip then either.
Us alcoholics gotta stick together.
If you stick to ale, you always know what you’re getting. I’ve worked in bars too, the filthy ice and inconsistent service are reasons enough to steer clear of ordering anything mixed. Drink GG at home I say.
was it me or was cloud having an impromptu white party last night? the entire crowd seemed to be like something from a p diddy party.
He sought you out to give you grief over the tip!? That’s classy, really.
First of all, it is courteous to give a tip to your server. BUT, it is not an obligation. Also, the bartender served you the wrong order, so double-no, he should not get a tip and shouldn’t expect one when you caught him. Maybe you should have given him a chance to redeem himself by telling him that you saw that he gave you something other than Grey Goose. If he knows he got busted, at least he could right the order. If he insists that he gave you the “right” order, then you have every right to feel that he doesn’t deserve a tip and talk to the manager about it. It’s totally uncouth for him to hunt you down to get his tip. Those couple of dollars or so aint’ gonna kill him, as it evens out in the end. If he doesn’t get tipped by one guy, another sucker will tip more than the average at some point.