lighthouse tavern

This Saturday, I had the unfortunate experience of stumbling upon the Lighthouse Tavern. A good friend was having a birthday celebration down the street at Southpaw. My group decided to skip out on the around-the-block line and search for a bar. We walked for what felt like 15 minutes, passing fancy restaurants, coffee shops, maternity clothing stores, and food co-ops. Finally, from a distance, I spied a red storefront that looked like it could have bar potential.

The Lighthouse Tavern was fairly crowded and top 40 rap music was blaring from the speakers. Alas, we decided to stick it out, because it took so long to find a bar in the first place.

The beer and liquor selection was pretty great, I must admit. But, the bartenders were complete a-holes. The first guy (male, bald, black-rimmed glasses) took his sweet time asking me what I needed. Yes, he saw me, and no, he wasn’t helping anyone else at the bar. I ordered an IPA and before it was handed to me, the bartender thought it would be a good idea to stack all of his glassware, even though I ordered a bottle. The next time I ordered a drink, I experienced the other bartender (male, heavyset), who was wearing a mardi gras themed jester hat with blinking lights on the ends. He was trying to entice bar patrons to drink Jamesons directly from the bottle with him. Needless to say, he was drunk and completely obnoxious. I ordered another IPA (I think that it was Butte Creek – delicious!) and a shot of Jack Daniels for the birthday boy. The drunken turd had the other bartender throw the bottle of JD to him, you know to show off his Cocktail moves, and dropped it. Also, instead of handing me back my change in a civilized way, he handed me a wad of crinkled bills. It was just really annoying, and I promise, I am not a difficult bar patron to please!

I wish that I had the opportunity to research this bar before I went. Lighthouse Tavern was rated 3 out of 5 stars on City Search, and most of the negative reviews were directly related to the service. In fact, LT even directly mentions these negative reviews on their website. Instead of trying to discredit the review, they claim that real bartenders at real bars with real beer are allowed to act this way.

The bottom line is that I have money to spend at bars. I tip well. I am not hard to please. But, I will never, ever go back to this bar, nor will I recommend it to anyone. Stay away.

Photos from lighthousetavern.net

-Leah