Freddy's Bar

its ok

My wife and I decided to finally get out and explore this new side of town we'd moved to.  After several stops, a bartender at another place said "try Freddie's...if they're open, you'll have a good time".

"If they're open?" I asked.

"Well, see, sometimes people drink and they forget to open up the next day...things happen."

Awesome.  I'm in.

So we went there, and it's a decent enough place.  Some highlights of the evening:

1.  We were there precisely thirteen minutes (I looked when we walked in, and then I looked when this happened because I couldn't believe it) before one of the female bartenders was telling us about her two hastily (and recently) taken pregnancy tests.  Time to put on your drinking helmets kids...this place "has character".  Any plans to go elsewhere went out the window, because I was determined to see what else evolved in this place as the night went on.  Friends were called.  Babysitters were procured.  This is now "where things will happen tonight".

2.  Upon getting into a discussion about the skull shaped decanter (again, damn you Yelp for not allowing photo uploads...) with another female bartender...well, nothing makes you feel old as when you say "Oh yeah, Dan Akroyd is behind that label, I remember reading about it" and the hot, young chick behind the bar cocks her head like a confused puppy and says "Who's Dan Akroyd?"

3.  There were stand up comics there.  While not necessarily the *best* venue for stand up comedy, it actually would've probably helped if they would've turned down the tv's so people would've focused on the comics instead of...well, one TV was showing some children's dance recital, obviously home video'd...I'm assuming the owner's kid or something (total "WTF?" moment), others had random channels on...it's not like there was a game or anything on that night.  Got a few laughs, had a good time.

4.  The drink prices were decent, beer, mixed, shots...no complaints on that front.

To comment on an earlier review, I guess my complaint is that apparently you have to be 50+ for the scantily dressed, barely 20 waitress to flirt with you.  But at least now I have something to look forward to if I'm still going there in over a decade...

...but seriously, the waitresses and bartenders were yep, on the young-ish side (early 20's), yep, cute, and yep, typically seemed to be paying more attention to "the regulars" than the casual drive-by customers...but I guess you can't blame them for thinking "long term".  I will say that once the drinking hats were firmly on and in place for the night (and you people realize that this is a euphemism, right? there aren't any literal hats, we just got serious about ordering and drinking), they perked right up and paid a whole lot of attention to us throughout the rest of the night and we never had any problems (and it was a mixed group, guys and girls, 30's and 40's) running low on drinks.

I've been back twice since this original time, and same vibe, same feel, same everything, really.  No comics, which I had thought there were going to do on a regular basis, but I guess I'll just keep an eye out for that.  I guess one night I was there was the aforementioned "open jam" night...that was probably my shortest time there...I'm not really sure what *was* going on up on stage...but calling it "music" would be an awfully polite stretch.

It's close enough to home to be a good "on the corner" bar, so I'll definitely be going back.

I would give it 2.5 stars if you could give half stars. This place is ok. Not a place I want to frequent every week, but not exactly a place I would avoid either. The bar seems to be clean and the staff is nice. The drinks and food are reasonable priced. The bar doesn't have a patio but a big garage door on the front of the building. When the door is opened it feels like your outside. I thought this was really cool. I have been there an few times and its seems like every time I go its open jam secession night. The open jam secession is annoying. It seems like its all guys in their 40s and 50s who still want to play guitar but are not in a band. Their playing isn't necessarily bad but I don't want to hear a 20 minute guitar solo in a song thats suppose to be 4 minutes long. Also don't plan on holding a conversation when people playing because this bar isn't exactly the biggest but the volume is cranked up for a college stadium.