My2ROOTS

MWar, Gizznat, Secret Agent Man and I try to go out once a week and do a sort of guy’s download of the previous weeks events and future events.  On occasion we do projects like install toilets, fix plumbing, wire cable, make art or just sit in someone’s basement or garage and smoke cigars. We started going out to bars about 2 times a month and decided that we would go to new bars that we’d never visited and rate them.

Here’s what we rated them on.  

1. Ambiance – how nice is the place, is it really nice like “date night” nice or is it scary like where you might get stabbed.

2. Talent - how’s the runway, is it all guy’s, a good mix, or ladies night at a drag queen convention.

3. Beer/Whiskey/Wine - A good selection, 2 beers on tap, or nothing but PBR.

4. Music - what are the playing – all 80′s, speed metal or acid jazz and current top 40 mixed (oh and volume of music is included)

5. Service - time to get the first beer and the last.

6. Bathrooms - You can stand in comfort or do you need to watch your back and wash your shoes?

Our first Bar review.

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Iron Horse Hotel & Bar
Florida in the Third Ward
Visited on a Wednesday night

Ambiance - 5; Way cool, wicked interior with parkay wood floor, leather accents, expensive lighting and a beautiful bar with customer motorcycles complete the view.

Talent - 2; BORING

Beer - 1; No beer on tap. Good whiskey selection.  Pricey!!

Music - 0; There was no music on but an old black and white christmas movie

Service - 4; Good, but the bartender interrupted my story to my buddies twice which was annoying!

Bathroom – 4; Hotel nice.

Overall Summary -17; on the GNO scale; The place is way to nice to be for bikers, non-smoking is nice except that we had cigars that we wanted to smoke.  No beer on tap was disappointing.  The Valet was nice but for one drink it was a wasted $5.00;  No talent to speak of, mostly older rich people.  Still smells of varnish.

******

Bar TuTo
Old World 3rd Street
Visited on a Wednesday night

Ambiance - 5; For an italian sports bar that’s supposed to be lower price it looks like a New York bar.

Talent - 2; Average; just okay, some girls but nothing to speak of.

Beer - 2; They had Stella Artois and Guinness but that’s all.

Music - 1; It was lame.

Service - 2; Our waitress could not have been more of a bitch, a very attentive bitch but a bitch.

 

Bathroom – 3; Nice, but that’s about all I can say about that.

 

Overall Summary -15; on the GNO scale; For an economical night out this is not the place to go and watch sports, talk and bullshit.  This is a place to take a date and consequently watch a basketball game in the process.  It was boring. We left after 3 drinks and went down the street to a real bar.

******

Shakers
2nd street & Florida in the Third Ward
Visited on a Thursday Night

Ambiance – 5; Like Hemingway was hanging out there writing a great novel with a dead lion and a shot gun next to him.

Talent – 2; the bartender was hot but otherwise it was all guys smoking cigars and being guys. (good potential though)

Beer – 5; great selection of beers and bonus points for having Bell’s on tap.  Great whiskey and Scotch selection and I’m guessing a good wine selection but we didn’t look

Music – 5; Acid Jazz, Common, Lupe Fiasco and at a decent volume, excellent music

Service – 5; Its cool when the owner/chef comes up to you because he recognizes you from the last time and makes sure you are doing okay. The waitress was always prompt and she put up with walking into some very awkward conversations about things girls shouldn’t hear! She also told us stories about ghost in the bar.  

Bathrooms - a 4; Comes with your own haunted ghost, which makes average more interesting.

Overall Summary - 26 on the GNO scale; This place is great, excellent ambiance, cigar selection that’s decent, comfortable seating, lots of space, and in general this is just a cool guy’s place.  Good for dates but it can get a bit smokey.  Try the Red Breast Irish Whiskey. Also has a great history, used to be a brothel, there’s a dead guy buried in the basement and a haunting of a little girl who died when the land was an apple orchard and an evil ghost who was apparently murdered in the basement and is still buried there.

 

 

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Kelly’s Bleacher 
Bluemound & 54th Street
Visited on Thursday

Ambiance – 3; Your typical bar interior, great 4 flat screen TV’s around the main bar.  

Talent – 2; There wasn’t much going on but we were early getting there when a bus load of Marquette Law students showed up…which didn’t really raise the score.

Whiskey/Beer – 3; Good selection of beers, we were stuck on Spotted Cow for the night.  NO Guinness though which is an auto ranking of 3.

Music – 3; They had a juke box playing, it was pretty diverse from the Police to Coldplay.

Service – 4; Good service the bartender was on, introducing his self (Brendan) and keeping us well liquored and with food and humor the whole time.

Bathrooms – a 3; not great but not horrible, just average.

Overall Summary - 19 on the GNO scale; We were early getting to this place, Gizznat and I had been at the shooting range so it was just after 7PM on a Thursday.  Still they had a good crowd by 9PM.  The music was at a good volume and we were able to enjoy the night with out screaming at each other but yet we could still hear some serious base coming through.  Gizz went on a quest to find the base boost.  We both had burgers and fries where were okay, not great but not horrible. I didn’t see on the menu where they have a 4# burger or how you order one but it’s on the sign.  Just an average bar, great location for going to a Brewers game and it would rock if it were closer to the house so I could walk there.  But as I can’t it wouldnt’ be my normal stomping grounds.

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Cafe Luna
E. Seeboth St (you can see it from the Ale House)
Visited on snowy cold Thursday

Ambiance – 5; It’s probably the trendiest bar we reviewed. Very chic, sexy, red, sort of like a French Coffee house that the French would build to make it look like a New York City bar.

Talent – 2; There wasn’t much going on there that night but it’s got potential for excellent strange.

Whiskey/Beer – 4; Good selection of beers, not a lot but decent, good whiskey selection and coffee barista was nice. They had wine, reds and whites.

Music – 3; They had a jazz/blues band but it was so loud and the acoustics sucked!

Service – 4; Better then average – the owner took us for a walk around the place and she was very nice. Bar tender was very attentive and we really had a good experience.

Bathrooms – a 3; not great but not horrible, just average, not attached to the bar so you have to walk through a maze of places to find them.

Overall Summary – 21 on the GNO scale; We were really early getting to this place, I think it had been opened 5 days. We were driving from the Ale house and saw it from across the bridge and just stopped in on a whim. That was a good choice. Still the decor was great, very red, lots of attention to details from the colored concrete, to the espresso colored wood accents and plastic light screens. Drinks were a little pricey but what you would expect from a nice place like this. We predict this will be a huge hit – excellent in the summer with the river overlook.

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Meir’s Sports Exchange
84th & Lisbon
Visited on a Thursday Night

Ambiance – 1; Decorated in pool hall crap. It has all the charm of a post apocalyptic walmart.

Talent – 0; The bartender was the only woman and I’m pretty sure she was the walking dead.

Whiskey/Beer – 1; They didn’t have Leinenkugels but they did have a 4-foot tall neon red sign that advertised “we have Leiny’s” so when we pointed to it after the confusion of “what’s a leiny?” we got a shrug and a “we don’t got that.” Beer was 1.50 for High Life.

Music – 0; The 4 guys sitting at the bar were watching a Susan Sarandon movie and commenting on it. There was no music.

Service – 0; They didn’t know what Sam Adam’s was or Leinenkugel.

Bathrooms – didn’t go in

Overall Summary - 2 on the GNO scale; Avoid this place unless you want to relive the movie The Color of Money (the poor version) and then get mugged. This is the lowest score we thought we’d ever give.

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Corner Bar
76th & Lisbon
Visited right after high-tailing it out of the Meir’s Sports Exchange.
 
Ambiance – 3; Decorated in standard Midwest flavor, a little NASCAR, a little sports.  Well lit, and clean, smoke wasn’t too bad.

Talent – 2; The bartender’s were the only women under 50. 

Beer – 3; Newcastle on Tap and Leiny’s, so we were happy, no Guinness though.

Music – 3; A digital juke box was playing, so there was a mix between speed metal and 80′s rock, good volume though.

Service – 3; Average, good, not great, attentive but didn’t WOW us.

Bathrooms – 3; Just a little less then okay, sort of dumpy but not horrible.

Overall Summary – 17 on the GNO scale; What can I say it was exactly about average.  But we had fun so that was a bonus.  I’d like to see it on a Friday or Saturday night to see what it’s like when it’s bumpin.

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Soblemans
St. Paul Ave
Visited on a rainy crappy Thursday

Ambiance – 3; It’s got a cool look from the outside but the inside is sort of plain jane. The big TV had soccer on it then it was some bad British TV show. The other TV was the kitchen cam…

Talent – 4; They were paraded in one after another, also all about 21, guy to girl ratio was about 2:1.

Beer – 3; Sam Adam’s on tap! Sprecher amber. No guinness, beer was average priced.

Music – 2; A good mix but lousy sound.

Service – 4; Our little waitress was like a bumble bee, she would zip in and out and get whatever we needed really quick. We were never dry.

Bathrooms – NA; didn’t go.

Overall Summary - 16 on the GNO scale; Not to be penalized because we didn’t go to the bathroom we’ve elevated the overall score to a 19 assuming the bathroom is average. We had a fun time here, the super awesome hamburgers were good, but not that super awesome. A good crowd on a Thursday night, I would give this a repeat performance.
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MJ’s
Milwaukee in the 3rd Ward
Visited on a Thursday after leaving Sobelmans’s

Ambiance – 2; Sort of like a den in your basement that you dressed up, not bad but not really original.

Talent – 2; Not many people there, 3 women total, 1 of them was apparently dating the bartender since after serving us beers he went and sat down at the bar with her.

Beer – 4; They had Guinness!!!!

Music – 4; They had a great mix, from Radiohead, to CSN. Good volume, good clarity

Service – 3; Average, a big head on the Guinness but at least it was poured correctly.

Bathrooms – 2; Well it was small, looked like it had been cobbled together and the water spout wouldn’t shut off and was hard to turn on. Paper towel dispenser sucked.

Overall Summary - 17 on the GNO scale; It was a good time because Mike and I are a lot of fun, but the place didn’t scream “have a blast at our bar” it was more like “eh, we sling drinks, bring your own fun” The notable part of the night, MJ’s is brining back the Dollar Bill. We weren’t really sure what that meant but it did make us laugh.

 

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Shepherd’s
North Ave (Wauwatosa)
Visited on a Thursday 

Ambiance – 4; Very typical bar, felt good and bar like, lots of sports memorabilia

Talent – 2; There were 4 women, 2 were okay, 2 were women…

Beer – 3; Mike, Lane & I drank Riverwest stein and then we switched to Newcastle, Leiny’s and Blue Moon- good selection – good price.

Music – 4; They had a juke box, played metallica (a customer did) and then we heard some “Aqua-Net” tunes (80′s big rock).

Service – 2-4; There are two bars in Shepherds – the guy working at bar #1 was def or he could only hear the 2 Asian girls sitting next to us.  The gal at Bar #2 heard us just fine and laughed at our jokes.

Bathrooms – 2; careful opening the door, it’s lighter then your hand!

Overall Summary - 18 on the GNO scale;  18 is a good solid score!  The bar has a good feel, a lot of space, very bar like feel.  Great sports memorabilia, if you have penis go to the girl bartender.  If your a hot Asian chick hit up the def guy.  Can’t miss him, he’s 6′-5, 250 and short a mullet and a hearing aid.