Chez Est

After being in CT just a little more than a week, this place has become our watering hole. We've met so many nice guys and already feel part of the family. This is the kind of place my partner and I like. We have a (non-gay) place like this at home in Germany. We're glad to have found one here!

I've been here a few times, and have always had a fairly enjoyable experience, but one this past Friday night really left a bad taste in my mouth. I went in here about 9:40 Friday night with a few friends, and was greeted by a person collecting cover charges. A cover at 9:40? A little strange that a place around here would charge a $5 cover before 10PM, but it really wasn't the end of the world. Begrudgingly, we paid, but at the time it wasn't that of a deal. We walked in, and it was dead, maybe 6 people in the whole place. It was still early though, so we decided to stick around a bit longer... 10 rolls around, no one else, 10:15 comes and goes with only 2 more patrons walking in. Finally at 10:30PM, we decided to ask the bartender if this place was going to pick up at all, but we did preface it with the fact that we weren't going to leave, but we were merely curious. He said the past few Fridays have been dead for some reason. We then asked if there was a DJ coming, he said the DJ called out sick. Okay... I understand that things happen, but why am I paying $5 to come in somewhere where there's 7 other people and no DJ, band, show... NOTHING. We then went to the front where the doorman collected our covers and VERY POLITELY explained to him our distaste of the situation and asked if we could please have our cover back. He told us it wasn't his decision, and we had to speak to the manager, who were told was the bartender. So we very nicely and non-confrontationally explained ourselves to the bartender (who we were told was the manager), and his response was that he wasn't the manager. He made no mention of who was in fact the bartender, but simply offered us each a free shot. We declined. After we politely declined he walked away and said, "You guys are so lame!" to us. Um, if not wanting to have a shot before we were about to drive is lame, then so be it- I'm lame.  I get that he was just joking around, but because of the situation, it was inappropriate. We just turned around and walked out. As we were leaving, the guy taking the covers (who was really nice, by the way) asked us if we talked to him, and we told him what happened, and that the bartender said he wasn't the manager. This guy rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated look as if though the manager pulls this kind of thing quite frequently, and you could tell he genuinely felt bad for us.

Unfortunately for Chez, they lost potential future clientele that night, and we are all going to be sure to let our quite extensive circle of friends know of what happened. For a place like this, they should really be trying to appease a younger crowd (we're all 23-24) instead of driving us away.  All in all, it wasn't really all that big of a deal, but just really bad business practice. The reason for the 1 star review isn't that we had to pay the cover when there was 8 people there and no DJ, band or show (which really is preposterous for a Friday night), but the fact that manager was too cowardly to admit that he was, in fact, the manager of the establishment. Come to find out through a bit of research and word-of-mouth in the community, the bartender WAS in fact the manager. I strongly doubt any of us or our friends will be returning here, and instead will take our business to the Polo club... where yes, we had to pay a cover, but the place was packed, had a great DJ, and a great show.

great local bar, where the boys always are! fun times always.