Review for the BAR only:
Oh gosh. For a moderately upscale place that does so well with its rooms and overall service, the bar service and the bartenders couldn't be more clueless. They're nice people, but desperately need training in very basic skills. A few immediate things to fix:
1. ALWAYS USE A STRAINER. Ice chunks (resulting from piss-poor bartending form) in any martini-style drink is unacceptable. This isn't even a "craft cocktail" thing. It's a basic thing. If you use a shaker and a glass to strain a $10 drink, you don't know what you're doing.
2. STOP SAMPLING DRINKS WITH STRAWS IN FRONT OF PATRONS. So you mix a drink (presumably from a recipe) and dip a (presumably clean) cocktail straw into it to pull a sample? Really? Wow.
3. UNDERSTAND AND MEMORIZE YOUR OWN RECIPES. An order from YOUR OWN DRINK MENU shouldn't be baffling.
4. VIRTUALLY EVERY DRINK SHOULD BE GARNISHED. When was the last time you saw an Old Fashioned properly served without any type of garnish whatsoever? Yep...NEVER.
5. LEARN HOW TO MEASURE. We watched as our two drinks poured out to about one and a half, at which point a few splishes of additional ingredients went into the shaker to top them off. OK, you can be off by a little, but not by half a drink. Again, probably just bad training and inexperience.
I'm sure this group is fine with more student-oriented drinks like beer. But if you're going to offer a higher end experience, specialty drinks and higher prices (which are all perfectly fine and appreciated in the heart of UW Student Central), you need more skills than just dumping vodka in some type of mixer.
We'll wait a while and try again.