Tonight was supposed to be like any other night I've been to this place: take a book, eat dinner at the bar, and mind my own business.

The bartender on duty tonight, I don't know her name, seemed to have other ideas in mind.

  1. She walked past several times after I'd put my book down (it's an e-reader) and the menu down - trying to look as hungry as possible until I started asking guys to my left and right if it was just my imagination that she wasn't paying attention to me (a new bartender who had just moved up from the kitchen had gotten me something to drink and later took my order).

  2. After being there for perhaps an hour, I asked for a drink that required Tonic Water. The same bartender who'd seemed to ignore me before told me "we're out of Tonic Water." I kept looking at her, expecting the "how about this drink instead?" or "would you like something different?"

  3. Instead she walked away, getting about ten feet away from me and saying "whatever" as she headed for the back of the bar. To say I was a little surprised would be an understatement.

  4. By the time she'd walked another 20 feet, I'd gathered my wits and asked (using the voice the Army taught me - projecting, not yelling), "What did you say to me?

And that's when I found out that I'll never be going to this place ever again, because the woman bartender immediately started to tell everyone that I'd been ignoring her when she asked me what I wanted to drink: "You were reading your book!" was her defense initially. And then the most physically not intimidating man in the place, who'd normally not talk to me, decided to charge to this woman's rescue (because women need that, I guess) and immediately told me: "You're done, get out!"

I should point out that the woman who insulted me was launching a stream of "Yea, get out of here." and "Let him talk, there's nothing he can do about it." Him in this case being me, and it being her treating me like a child and / or acting like one, I'm not sure. Either way, as I had both this man-child telling me to "get out" without any authority whatsoever (I believe he sweeps the floor, not that I don't have a great love for clean floors, but I moved beyond that skill a long time ago).

Then I have the female bartender, who to the best of my knowledge only fills in when other people have time off, and then it really gets interesting: Two groups of men start approaching me, one from the staff, the other male patrons who must "protect" this woman who thought nothing of attacking with her mouth not so long ago, but now hides behind about 8 men (most of them were larger than me).

So, now I'm backing out the door, trying to decide where I'm going to defend myself, because I've never seen this happen before at this place (others, but not here), and the worst thing is to get backed into a corner (no, you don't fight better there, you usually get messed up). As I try to warn guys off, five follow me to the parking lot, with one of them thankfully the General Manager (who was getting ready to leave when this all started).

The GM basically tells everyone to get lost, and is less than happy about the entire situation, but tells me that beyond looking into it, a complaint from me is the best way to handle this (I've always heard rumors that the owners have favorites, and when people play favorites based on personality instead of performance, the organization suffers - I know, I studied this and then put it into motion in the Army).

Bottom Line? This place has been getting lower and lower in quality for the past few years, mostly (I think) because the Harley dealership next door is running in the red, so they have to pull profits out of the restaurant to keep everything afloat. It's a bad way to run a business, but people like having their names on buildings, even if they'll have to declare bankruptcy in a few years.

Your choice is this: do you want to go to some place to get bad treatment and then be attacked by a crowd and publicly humiliated (and possibly followed out into the parking lot) if you complain to the wrong person?

My answer is easy, go somewhere else.