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| - How hard is it to get a drink in this place?
15 Brits in Montreal elected to hold our James Bond Night meetup at the Wunderbar. For the décor, it was perfect. For the cocktail selection, it was pretty good (plenty of non-sweet cocktails, even on the $5 list), though my margarita was not the best I ever had - more lime, less tequila... For the service, the two girls who served us were cute as buttons and sweet as can be, but that's all I can say.
First I took the trouble to explain to the first server that we, as Brits, like to drink. Therefore, we'd appreciate it if she and her colleague did not remove an empty glass without offering to get us another drink, and preferably, they asked us before the glass was empty. I also explained that we drink quicker than an average Canadian, so we'd appreciate it if they were a little more attentive to our empty glass situation.
Then I had to explain it to a second server because the first one did not pass it on.
Between 7:15 and 11pm, I was able to consume 1 margarita and 4 whisky sours. I waited for the final one for a good 15 minutes. I could probably have spent quite a bit more money (given the price of the drinks), had the servers heeded my explanations...
To cap it all, when my bill came, I noticed something called "Service Admin" that worked out as 18% of the before-tax total. I queried this with the manager, explaining the whole scenario (see above) and, instead of the apology I expected, I was told that the service admin was normal for a group. I hasten to add that we all had separate bills, and at no time were we told or was it pointed out by some other sign in the bar that this was the case. It turned out that some of my friends even paid a tip on top of the 18%. I refused and ended up paying less than 15%.
In short, I won't be back, great décor or no. If you're interested, it does indeed suddenly get busy from 11pm. Goodness knows how long those people have to wait to get a drink...
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