Sunday, June 7, 2009

On the house FAIL

Friday night started out innocently enough. DJC and I took a nice relaxing walk to dinner at the local pub, had wine, beer, a delicious cheeseburger and Wattie's. Aaaah, happiness. I was content with calling it a night right then and there, but DJC suggested that we head over to a bar across the street that "had a good beer selection". I'm not much of a beer drinker anymore, but I figured I'd indulge the boy for a little while. I was sure they'd have an acceptable wine or two.

We took two seats at the bar and ordered. Almost immediately, DJC and the bartender struck up a conversation about beer. The bartender, Chris from Chico, said that he had never tried a certain kind of beer that DJC mentioned, and next thing we knew Chris brought a bottle over along with three glasses. He stated that he was allowed one free bottle a night and that this was his. We thanked him and he wandered off.

A bit later, Chris noticed our glasses were empty and asked us what beer we'd like next. By this time, I had had two glasses of white wine, one glass of red wine and one small glass of beer. Sure, I thought...more beer sounds like a great idea. When Chris returned with our cold beers, he slid them across the bar and said, "These are on the house". WOOT!!, we thought. Free beer! All was right in the world.

A little later, Chris came by with another open bottle and set it down in front of me after stating that his boss had opened it so that they could try it, and neither of them liked it. It was a large 18.5 oz bottle and they'd wasted exactly .5 ounces of it deciding that it was no good. Fortunately for me, I thought it was great. It was also "on the house". This was turning out to be an awesome night full of bonus beer. We thought that Chris was the greatest guy in the world...

...until we got our tab. Somewhere along the line, he must've forgotten about all of the beer that was supposedly "on the house". In reality, we paid for the exact number of beers and glasses of wine that we had consumed. It wasn't quite the deal we thought we were supposed to be getting. But we were totally hammered and it didn't really matter so much. We stumbled home laughing the whole way and happily went to sleep.

When we thought about the supposed free beer we should have gotten the next morning, we were a little more than pissed and horribly hung over. I mean, really...WTF?! Here's the lesson of the day, kids: When paying for drinks at a bar where the bartender is a total douchebag, pay in cash after each individual round. That way, you can keep track of what you're paying for and what you're actually getting "on the house".

And Chris...here's a big middle finger to you, dude. Stop promising shit you can't, or won't, deliver. Ass.

3 comments:

[No Nickname] said...

Dude -- you need to launch a web truth campaign.

ID this bar by name!

Yelp too!

Unacceptable!

Arvay said...

You should complain to the manager. That is totally unethical. How is this different from a restaurant waiter bringing you unordered food, and then charging you for it? And, gee, it also ups their tip, hm, funny how that works out.

The Enforcer said...

I'm not saying that it was the Fireside Lounge on Webster Street, but it might have been...

Apparently, Chris only tends bar there on Fridays. That leave six other days of the week for this place to redeem themselves. The proximity to our house is the ONLY reason we *might* return...