I met a friend here while we were waiting for out of towners who'd never been to the Merc, so we wanted an easy to find neutral location.
Unfortunately our wait extended to a solid 45 minutes. The first 30 of which we suffered by sitting at the bar, where an amplifier seemingly directed straight at our heads churned our brains into mincemeat with bad karaoke.
Actually most of the singers were not bad. But as it turns out, having "not bad" imitations of rock songs drilled into your skull at 3 billion decibels is still not fun. We eventually moved to the patio, where we could have a decent conversation.
Our waitress was very friendly and prompt so I'll give them a second star for that. But bottom line: there is absolutely no reason, not one, I can think of for why you would voluntarily come here.