Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Things that piss me off #92
In DuPont circle there's what I used to think was a pretty cool bar/pool hall named Buffalo Billiards. The DC Cal Alumni group had us meet there to watch the game on Saturday on one of their large projection screens, which in theory makes sense. They have the space and it's a bar, and they serve food. With pool tables. Awesome.
A large group of people showed up to watch the game, which surprised me given it was the holiday weekend at the end of the August recess. I’d say between 50 and 70 folks were there, crowded around the furthest screen on the right side of Buffalo’s as you walk in the front door. There was one long table in front of the screen, so people got chairs and tables from the middle of the restaurant area and brought them over. The bar tender got on the loudspeaker to tell us we had to put them back after the game, which we were cool with. The game goes one, we eat, we drink, we curse and cry, and long about the middle of the third quarter a bar tender/waiter turns the game to the Comcast channel guide and orders us to put the chairs back or he’s not going to turn the game back on. No one moves, we can hardly believe what we’re being told to do, and the guy gets more belligerent. Being courteous Cal fans, we put the chairs and tables back, and since we’re getting screwed, we leave. As the mass exodus is filing out the manager comes on the loudspeaker to snivel at us "uh…you guys don’t have to leave, you can still watch the game standing…" Verbatim, I kid you not, he expected us to stand for hours, and pay for drinks. This being complete crap I closed out my tab, and watched thunderstruck as a different bartender starts mocking us in a parodied, exaggerated tantrum and ends by saying "who cares about Cal, they suck."
Now I can understand if they needed the tables and chairs for other people who were coming in to enjoy a burger or fries or something, but there was next to no one else in there. Assuming they did actually need the tables, they could have certainly been more polite about it, and EVEN IF they needed to be forceful with us there was no call for the personal and institutional disparagement leveled at us by the staff. I'm never going back there and I don't know of one self respecting Cal fan who is. Hope their empty tables were worth it.
A large group of people showed up to watch the game, which surprised me given it was the holiday weekend at the end of the August recess. I’d say between 50 and 70 folks were there, crowded around the furthest screen on the right side of Buffalo’s as you walk in the front door. There was one long table in front of the screen, so people got chairs and tables from the middle of the restaurant area and brought them over. The bar tender got on the loudspeaker to tell us we had to put them back after the game, which we were cool with. The game goes one, we eat, we drink, we curse and cry, and long about the middle of the third quarter a bar tender/waiter turns the game to the Comcast channel guide and orders us to put the chairs back or he’s not going to turn the game back on. No one moves, we can hardly believe what we’re being told to do, and the guy gets more belligerent. Being courteous Cal fans, we put the chairs and tables back, and since we’re getting screwed, we leave. As the mass exodus is filing out the manager comes on the loudspeaker to snivel at us "uh…you guys don’t have to leave, you can still watch the game standing…" Verbatim, I kid you not, he expected us to stand for hours, and pay for drinks. This being complete crap I closed out my tab, and watched thunderstruck as a different bartender starts mocking us in a parodied, exaggerated tantrum and ends by saying "who cares about Cal, they suck."
Now I can understand if they needed the tables and chairs for other people who were coming in to enjoy a burger or fries or something, but there was next to no one else in there. Assuming they did actually need the tables, they could have certainly been more polite about it, and EVEN IF they needed to be forceful with us there was no call for the personal and institutional disparagement leveled at us by the staff. I'm never going back there and I don't know of one self respecting Cal fan who is. Hope their empty tables were worth it.
# posted by Mike @ 2:57 PM 
