| rev:text
| - The Good:
- Great location
- Authentic pub feel
- Wooden floors or faux wood, either way, very nice touch
- The build/construction of the actual bar, the liquor display, the area where the bartender works just screams pub.
- Curb appeal doesn't get better, opened red wooden shutters onto sidewalk café is warm and inviting.
- Liquor menu is no nonsense, relatively small but carefully selected varieties of bourbon, whiskey and scotch. The mixed drink menu was not available, I understand it is being reworked.
- This place just opened and it has great promise if they can work out some of the bugs. I expect to write another more glowing review in a few months.
The not so good:
- Flat screen HD TV's all over the place showing basketball. Nothing and I mean nothing kills pub atmosphere more quickly and thoroughly than TV sports. You can go anywhere to watch crap sports, it would be nice to find a watering hole where you could escape sports. People tend to disengage from each other and look up at the TV. Instead of strangers meeting and having conversation, they just look up at the TV like they are in a dazed state. Even couples who enter together often do the same, and if they do try having a conversation, the TV's are so distracting they can't keep a single train of thought. If you have to show sports, why not something different like rugby, Irish hurling, Aussie football, professional darts do something to set yourself apart from every other sports bar out there? If you want to turn a bar into an instant ghetto, put up a bunch of TV's and play the big four, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB.
- The music was awful. Such care and effort went into designing and building this wonderful space just to have it ruined by (I will be kind here) "urban" music. It's a pub, why not play more traditional anglo Irish music? Again, Majerles and any number of other sports bars are just around the corner.
- The menu mirrors the music and TVs, too busy, too much and incongruent with the space. Turkey burgers, kabobs, Southwest chicken wrap, wasabi Caesar wrap, black bean burgers .... My advice is to keep it simple and keep it authentic, if you try to be all things to all people you end up being nothing to anybody. A menu like this stresses out the kitchen, leads to waste, spoilage and does little to enhance the atmosphere or reputation. The "Across The Pond Fare" on the menu was not available as it also is being reworked. The menu should consist of ONLY the "Across The Pond Fare", Irish Breakfast, rashers, Pastys, Shepherd's Pie, Cottage Pie, blood sausage, black sausage, white sausage, fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage. If you have to serve burgers, keep it simple.
- There is a bit of confusion at the front gate. The iron fencing around the sidewalk café is black and so is the gate. I saw several groups of people having a little trouble locating the gate as they tried to enter the pub. A nice coat of red paint that matches the shutters or a decorative piece attached to the gate would help people find their way in.
In closing, the Kettle Black has everything in place to become a great success, something on par with the pubs of D.C., N.Y. and Boston.
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