I can only speak to this place at nights, but each time I've been the music is insanely and obnoxiously loud. You can't hear anyone, and it gets extremely crowded.
I actually used my phone app to measure the decibels. It showed around 90db, which is more than enough to give you long-term hearing damage according to academic/gov't safety reports. I really wish they would set a maximum sound level that was safer.
So over-priced. Such a snobby scene (on weekends at least). I took my cousin there from our of town and there was a group of college girls that were SO obnoxious and loud we couldn't hear ourselves speak. The drinks are expensive, some beer is decently priced. Rather hit up Fullsteam in Durham than deal with the crowd here.
Review Source:This place is my favorite place on Franklin Street. The oysters are phenomenal and the huge selection of martinis is magnificent. These guys know good service and I felt very welcomed here. My favorite martini is the caramel appletini, which is SO HARD to find elsewhere! I went to other bars and they didn't even know how to make a simple appletini. East End definitely knows how to keep me coming back for more thats for sure.
Review Source:Fantastic selection of martinis. My favorite was Girl Scout, then Singapore Sling (good), St. Germain cocktail (good).
Food: crawfish break (very good), beef sliders (good), grilled cheese minis (ordinary, should've skipped it), oyster sampler (very good).
The place was surprisingly empty when we came in around 9pm on Friday, but got more busy as we were leaving. Service was pretty good.
Next time I'm going to have martinis only, since the food wasn't really mindblowing, just a nice addition to alcohol.
This bar is trying too hard to be something which is not really needed in Chapel Hill. In particular, they are trying to be an exclusive New York City style martini bar but the only people who would want to pay the cover and come in are pretentious douchebags. Of course, it also comes with a high cover charge. So now that you know who the clientele are and know about the cover, if you still wanna go try it (like I did) then be prepared for a very strange interior. They have a super-small dance floor where you walk in, but really everyone goes upstairs to dance. The bartender was rude on the ground floor and so I decided to check out the others. Upstairs was a strange scene like a bar trying to be a techno club in a place where no one has ever seen that before. The downstairs just seemed like a dive bar. I suppose I'd come here if I wanted to laugh at people dancing badly, but honestly it's just not worth the trip.
Review Source:I haven't even been here since they started serving food! Â I bet it's off the chain, though. Â This place was always the starting point for a raging Friday or Saturday night. Â
Below, "deep end" usually entails all the beer (busch lite or miller lite most likely) you can devour on select nights. Â That's what's up. Â Used to be penny pints, then it shifted to paying a cover for little water-cups of beer, now....I am eager to head back and check it out. Â There are beer pong tables, and couches I would think THRICE about sitting in, if you know what I mean.
The upstairs is super chill, there are dart boards and you can get your wii on and kick it with your friends (and hear them, as opposed to the lower levels).
The main level has hoppin' DJs, ladies and gents getting groovy, and a "party rock" feel. Â Love this place.
Oysters are only in season in months that end in "R". Â But it's okay, because this place is still awesome. Â I had a Manhattan and it was very well made. Â We also ate dinner....I wanted something kinda light, so I had a salad with grilled shrimp. Â Yum! Â Their house dressing is delicious. Â We sat outside and it was a great ambiance, right across from the UNC campus. Â Seemed a little too loud inside, so I'm glad it wasn't too hot that evening. Â Very comfortable outdoors. Â I would go back here. Â They've got a huge martini selection and I want to go back and try them all, especially the Banana Cream Pie flavor or the Pineapple Upside down cake flavor. Â Hello, deliciousness!
Review Source:This is one of (if not the) best party spots in Chapel Hill. Whenever I have friends visiting that want to got out in Chapel Hill, I recommend it. I've been here on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and it's always crowded and full of loud music and dancing. The DJs are always good, they really get people moving. I've never had the food here, in fact I didn't know they even sold food! But late night it's the spot on Franklin St.
Review Source:After yet another disappointing visit to Top of the Hill where we sat at our table for over a half hour without being served so much as a water, my wife and I decided to head out and try something new. Â Actually, we had planned on just going home and calling it a night but fortunately for us we parked right in front of the East End Oyster & Martini Bar.
First, the service is FANTASTIC. Â I wasn't expecting attentive service especially since we were there around 10:30 pm after wasting an hour at Topo. Â My wife had a Bloody Mary Martini that packed some serious spice and I had a Margarita Martini which helped me forget my earlier awful experience at Top of the Hill. Â Did I mention Top of the Hill sucked last night? Â Because they did....again.
Anyway, we started out with the crab dip which we devoured! Â My wife had the Buffalo Shrimp and I had the crab cakes, both were lovely and presented very well. Â
When the bill came, I have to be honest; I was expecting it to be about $40 more than it actually was...I guess I'm just used to Top of the Hill Prices...which suck. Â
On our way out, almost every person on the work staff asked us how our meal was including the owner. Â This place is getting two big thumbs up from me! Â The only reason I am not giving them a full 5 stars is because I'm not sure if I am just comparing them to the crapola that was Top of the Hill.
We were looking for a place to relax and shoot some pool after a nice dinner at Top of The Hill. Mistake #1 was listening to the bouncer who said there were two pool tables and pretty much guaranteed that it wouldn't be too busy and that we would be able to play right away. Turns out that one of the pool tables was out of order. We waited about 20 minutes before we got to play. Mistake #2 was paying 5 bucks cover to come in here before I remembered that there are other places to play pool that wouldn't charge cover. Mistake #3 was getting change in quarters to play pool when because (again) there are other places to play pool that don't charge quarters to play. Mistake #4 was coming here when we did because it just so happened to be country music night. So, unless you like excess country and getting ripped off, avoid this place.
Review Source:I'm totally confused with the membership to this place. Â I used to go all the time in school and I was never a member and I never had any issue getting in. Â Anyway, the martinis are excellent. Â Yum. Â Girl Scout Cookie. Â I have had some very drunken moments at this place. Â The stage is very low to the ground when people play, which has led me to sometimes get up onto the stage to talk to people without even realizing. Â I apologize to those band members!
I have to say though my favorite place was probably Deep End and 25 cent beers on Thursday nights. Â Not sure if they still do that, but that was definitely the best night in college. Â If I'm there in a going out sort of mood this place is always on my list.
As a former UNC attendee, East End was one of my favorite bars to frequent. Sure, it helped that it was the closest to my dorm being a straight shot almost out of the back of Old West. But even more than that was the delicious martinis they served. My favorite was their Pineapple Upside Down martini. If you like pineapple, you'll love it.
Booths in the back offer a quieter place to hold a conversation with friends. Or if you're looking for a livelier night, sit at the bar or at one of the front tables where all the action is. Get in early though because this smaller establishment can get quite packed.
Being a martini bar I'm sure you can guess that it boasts a slightly higher drink price tag than some of the other Franklin Street establishments. But if you're going here, you're going for quality over quantity.
Non-greeks beware. This place tends to be a frequent hang out for those in fraternities and sororities. Even so, it's a great place to start off your night. Get in early or you might not get in at all.
The East End is two fascinating bars in one.  It's all kind of like that scene in Dirty Dancing with the swanky party being contrast with the working party  (a movie that I really only remember based on episodes of Family Guy)
The upstairs, the East End, is basically your swanky jazz bar, what with oysters and martinis and whatnot. Â This is the Jerry Orbach section of the show, but without the fun one-liners that made Orbach famous later on "Law & Order". Â It's a nicely done place. Â A little pricey for my own taste, but I can see its charm. Â And the music is decent, though Friday night was an interesting time to have jazz going.
The downstairs is the Patrick Swayze section of our show. Â It's kind of dark and dingy, and it has a decent mix of pool tables and beer pong. Â It's the proletarian section of the establishment, offering 50 cent beer night on Fridays (Busch, 12oz cups) and other regular beer-related amenities. Â One thing I did appreciate: I got quicker service because I had tipped the bartender earlier in the evening. Â Remember to tip your bartender, kids :) Â
It gets a little crowded down there, though for the most part you're able to move around relatively easily. Â I did feel kind of dated though hearing Smash Mouth's "All-Star" as part of a retro set, but I'm also the one basing a review around a scene from a movie released in 1987, so I can't talk.
If I were Jennifer Grey (and I'm not, as evidenced by the whole "I'm John L. thing") I would probably choose the Patrick Swayze part of the bar. Â But both of them were filled with great service, and the downstairs had great deals.
Honestly, I would give this place only two stars if it weren't for the Deep End downstairs. I understand that there are plenty of people who want to stack into a club like sardines in their best preppy gear and order fruity drinks all night - of course, if there weren't East End wouldn't exist. But every time I've been to either of the upper levels, it has been far from a pleasant experience. The last time I went to the upstairs bar dancing wasn't even a possibility as the dance floor was so packed you couldn't walk, let alone dance. The last time I went to the main floor bar, the service was extremely slow and two of our drinks came out made incorrectly. On the upside, though, drink prices were fairly reasonable by Franklin Street standards.
The Deep End, on the other hand, is exactly how others have described it: dark, dirty, cheap, and loud...but fantastic. It's not the kind of place I'd want to go all the time, I'll admit. But there are those nights when you just want to have weak, cheap, American beer and play beer pong with a rowdy bunch of college kids (or people who wish they were). On those nights, the Deep End is most definitely the place to be.
I personally hate Martini Bar, but that's not to say that I don't understand how it's appealing to some people. I have enough friends who love it to have been plenty of times. It's not so much the drinks or the service that bugs me, it's the crowd and the layout. There is a large martini menu, and I'm pretty sure that most of them are around $6 or $7, which isn't too bad. The upstairs area is great if you want to dance, but I think that with the addition of that space the cover went up. I love those big, comfy couches on the second level (the actual Martini Bar), but the owners do love to host live music acts right in front of the bar, which gets to be problematic. Those martini glasses don't offer much insurance against spillage when someone inevitably bumps into you. The bottom level, Deep End, is more my kind of bar. It's dirty and disgusting, but they have 25 cent drafts and plenty of bar games.
Review Source:How often have I come here and yet not realized that "Deep End" was actually a part of East End? Â I thought it was just a clever nickname born from the location. Â Well I'll be darned.
I can't speak to upstairs, but here's what I do know. Â East End (the street level) is a small dance club type bar that's kind of like Players only with a more healthy acknowledgment that the outside world exists. Â The music is much better and the clientele takes a step down on the dodgy meter. Â Generally people here are higher class, though still extremely Greek.
The real attraction here is Deep End, the basement. Â It's grim and dark and loud and furious and sleazy... but in a good way. Â You come down here to pound back terrible, cheap beer with your other cheap friends (chances are I'll be one of them) and play beer pong on some excellent tables. Â It's a dive bar's dive bar. Â You'll love i.t
East end is a good place to go for a large group of people, mainly because it is essentially 3 bars in one. Uptown is on the top floor, and has a large dance floor. It isn't open every night, but it is always open on Friday and Saturday nights. On the main level, they often have live music on the weekends, and is a pretty typical bar. The lower level is Deep End, and they are known for their infamous quarter Bud Lights. You used to be able to bring them to any of the other levels, but now you must finish them downstairs. Deep End is also host to country music night on Tuesdays, where it is not atypical to see someone line dancing in the corner. Christina below is right in mentioning that there is always a cover, but if you become good friends with the bouncers or owners, you may get a coveted Black Card that gets you and one guest in free every night.
Review Source:Commonly known around town as simply the "Martini Bar," this place is very popular with the student crowd. You do need (technically) to have a membership or be with a member to enter (though I find this is very loosely tracked). They keep a guest list (a steno pad of paper) of names as people enter. If you don't carry a membership card, seems like you just pay a couple more bucks for cover. Ah yes, cover. There's almost always a charge here (not to mention a long line). They do often feature bands -- but the space is not that great for live music. So the band gets crowded into a small corner and everyone has to shout over them to make conversation (which the bar seems to want to encourage -- with it's small tables and cozy leather couches). The black leather-bound menu has hundreds (well, at least 50 'gourmet' martinis). These come in oversized martini glasses and can pack a powerful punch and --sometimes-- lead to unexpected nudity (flashback to my 90-pound friend who had an unpleasant encounter with a third martini here).
In recent years, East End has bought out the immediately downstairs and upstairs floors, making them a triplicate power-house that conjures up images of Miami-based nightclubs with 5 levels of varying dance tunes; but it's a much, much, much smaller version of that. Downstairs (Deep End) does .25cent  beer (yes, it's as bad as you'd expect for that price -- but also perfect for drinking card games and flip cup which are popular here.); upstairs offers a more swanky flavor.
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