if you’re from around here, you know that what is now ambiance used to be gators grill and before that something i don’t even remember because it lasted like a month and before that was red lobster. so about a week after ambiance opened the boyfriend and i thought, what the hell, we’ll stop in and see what happy hour was like. here’s my sad little report:
1) “happy hour drink specials” included one drink. one. the house margarita. strawberry or lime. frozen or on the rocks. the special thing was that they were half off. which meant they were the bargain price of $3.50. each. and they weren’t even all that bloody special! they were made with house liquor, and not much at that, and were all of about six ounces. there were no food specials to go along with the drink specials.
2) happy hour was two hours, 5-7, but the live band wasn’t scheduled to start till 8. so they want you to come in, not get any special food, not get any special drink, and even if you wait until the last part of that two hour window like we did, arriving at 6:45, you will still wait at least an hour before any real entertainment arrives to get your attention away from the episode of emeril that’s playing on the big screen.
3) there is a vip lounge. oddly, it does not really have a view of the stage, as it is behind a wall that has windows that are obscured and a doorway that, while always open-sans-door, is only a 36″ opening. oh, and it’s not just reserved for vip’s either. because while we were there, a couple came in that, upon deciding they didn’t want the proffered table, decided they wanted to sit in the vip room and were promptly allowed to do so. so to recap; you can come in and not get special food and not get special drinks and not have any real enterainment and sit anywhere you damn well please while not getting all of the above.
4) the “menu” included all of about ten items. now while i understand the need to limit the size of a menu straightaway after opening, i don’t understand the need to serve food items on what appears to be a mismash of discarded wedding reception plasticware along with discarded cafeteria flatware. at least the glasses were glass. but i digress; since we were there for happy hour and not a meal, we opted for the nachos. when they first arrived on the table (sans appetizer plates for each of us, only the serving platter was presented) they looked relatively appealing. a generous portion of chips with two kinds of cheese (shredded and queso), a good amount of chicken (which was extra) and sour cream, tomatoes, lettuce and jalepenos. unfortunately, the chicken was cold, the queso canned and the whole thing should have been at least warm enough to have melted the chedder. it was not. still, for the six bucks we paid, we weren’t going to not eat it if it was palatable.
5) our server did not offer us water nor did he bring it. when he did bring us our appetizer he did not bring additional napkins, so we only had those that had been wrapped around our flatware. when he brought me the check and could see that i was writing notes on it, he hovered around instead of patiently waiting at a polite distance. and despite the fact that the “menu” was so limited, he was apparently not aware of what, if any, food specials there may have been because as we overheard him tell the ladies at the next table – the displayed plates at the door were yesterdays specials, so he didn’t know what, exactly, the one that looked like a quesedilla was.
while i admit it would be nice to have someplace that looks like the clubs i see in friends pictures from their adventures downtown, and from just the right angle, ambiance appears to be headed in that direction on some level, i’m sorry to say they’re not there yet. and, if the track record of the location has any bearing on it, they won’t ever make it there at all.
what this town needs is some ambiance!