Britannia Arms Pub & Restaurant

Against my better judgement i decided to give this place one last try for drinks after work on a Saturday night. We all agree the point of going out to get drinks with your friends is to have fun and relax right? Never start at this place if you want a drink in less than 30 minutes. They have the absolute worse bartenders in downtown Monterey, they purposely ignore you (hoping you'll go away?) for at least 15-20 minutes before acknowledging you. I work for two different fast paced and high volume restaurants, I understand it gets busy and you can't get to everyone right away, but after 15 minutes you should at least acknowledge someone with an "Ill be with you shortly", please don't give me dirty looks for coming to your bar to try to get a drink, that's why you're there isn't it? You came here voluntarily for the purpose of serving drinks right or wrong? Maybe you need to remind yourself of that overly plucked eyebrow bartender. I don't know if this guy has worked here so long that he thinks he can get away with anything or if the owners don't give a shit and let him but he has been downright disrespectful to my boss and myself a couple times now. Two weekends ago he made us wait 22 minutes before acknowledging us for a drink so we only tipped him 2$ on two doubles, sorry tips are for service, and he YELLED at my boss/owner, trying to embarrass him in front of other guests, about his tip. My boss calmly replied that tips are for service and that as a bartender himself he would never give such atrocious service and then expect, let alone demand, a greater tip. He continued to berate my boss in a raised voice, leaning forward towards him, trying to intimidate him I guess, telling him "I don't care if you think you're a bartender, this tip is shit". What a lunatic! My boss/owner doesn't bother telling him about the alcohols he has created and bottled, the competitions he has won, or the magazines his drinks have been featured in. We know better than to continue provoking someone with clear mental issues and just laughed at him and walked on. Sometimes I think it upsets people more when they don't get a rise out of you. Of course we were upset, but never show weakness to an enemy. Needless to say our night was ruined, we were so aggravated we finished our drinks and went home.

The next week (last weekend) our friends were already here when we got off work so we reluctantly joined them. Same night of the week, same bartender, luckily there was another girl bartender, things were looking good. After I make eye contact with him he gives me a dirty look and says "No", he then walks over to her, tells her something and she ignores us too! I'm sorry but you started this and took it someone it didn't need to go, why don't you try approaching the situation from a different perspective and perhaps prove us wrong by giving friendly and efficient service and then you would get a great tip and make a repeat customer instead of an enemy. So we stand as people around us who came after us get served before us, this is upsetting but I'm not going to make it a big deal, why waste the energy. Finally 18 minutes pass before the girl bartender acknowledges us, she's not friendly but at least she didn't go out of her way to be rude to us. I understand the pressures of wanting to please someone who is your senior, but the fact is as the senior employee the kind of example that you are setting is it is ok to be rude to guests, ignore customers who you "don't like", verbally abuse customers and who knows what else. Later in the evening I tried one more time to make peace with him but he refused. It was about 10 minutes before last call, and even thought he had just served a group in front of me, when I asked him for two crown doubles he said No. I said excuse me? He said we're done. I said excuse me you haven't done last call and you just served them. He walks away as I'm still talking AND SERVES A COUPLE NEXT TO ME. Wow. Whatever makes you feel better dude. I'll pray for you and your anger issues. This upset my boss of course but I said I didn't mind giving our business to another bar who wanted it. I waited for my friends to finish their drinks and about ten minutes later they announced last call. Seriously unprofessional and slightly psychotic.

Really upsetting that things like this go on and the owners allow it. Refusing service? I want my employees to always give the impression to guests that they are welcomed and their business is valued, I would never tolerate an employee verbally abusing a guest or refusing service based on a personal vendetta. But hey if that's how you want to run your business, that's your prerogative. I sincerely doubt we are the first people this has happened to. We did so little (be it unintentional) to provoke this. We all have problems but don't take them out on other people, be a big enough person to admit when you're wrong and just move on from it, we WERE willing to.

This place is great, day or night! Their daytime waitress was a sweetheart.

I like that the Brit carries my favorite cider and the last time I had food there it was decent and the servers were good (this was in spring 2012).

Recently friends and coworkers went out for a birthday and starting the day after and into the next week 10 of us were sick.

I called to let a manager know and "he was busy" I told the person on the phone and they made excuses and blew me off.

I will not be frequenting this bar/restaurant again.