I'm an amateur comic and performed my first set here towards the end of April 2013. Â This review is written for the open mic comic looking for a place to break in.
Pros: Â The venue is a real comedy club. Arrive early to get on the list. There is no guarenttee you will go but if you let the host know its your first time and you brought a few guests you probably get 4 minutes. Â Make sure to annote this on the sign up sheet. Â
Dark lights on the audience and bright lights on the comic is perfect. There was a decent size crowd of around 75 people for the open mic. Â There was no drink minimum on this night. The tickets were $5 a person. You don't pay as a comic.
The coolest thing about this club is there is a small fraternity of comics performing there. They treated me like a "real" comic even though I had never been on stage. Everyone is supportive and will offer you tips after your set.
We went to see a real show the weekend before and enjoyed ourselves during this as well.
Cons: Â The smoke will be annoying for some people. At open mic night they allow smoking all throughout the show. However, on the weekends the early show doesn't allow smoking. I'd recommend going to that one otherwise you've been warned.
The food is strictly average. Your typical overpriced fast food comedy club. This is acceptable to me because the comedy club has to make money.
Overall this is a great club for an open mic comic as well as someone who is looking for a nice place to take out a date, family, or friends.
Loved everything about it except the fact that it's in the middle of BFE.
I'm NOT saying that the people who rated this place low are idiots, but I do sometimes feel that people don't get comedy. Yeah, your experience here will depend on the crowd, the comic, and the chemistry. If you go to a comedy club, you have to expect to be offended. Seriously. If you go to a comedy show and nothing offends you, you probably have no soul. I'm not saying something has to be offensive in order to be funny, but you will have a much more enjoyable time at a comedy show if you stay open and just expect the worst.
I expected this venue to be divey, but it wasn't at all compared with the clubs I'm used to. Plenty of seating (which was pretty spacious), nice host, and nice waitresses. Â $10 cover, no drink minimum (best news ever), and really good crowd for a Thursday night. My only complaint is that the waitstaff obstructed the show too much. I would rather sit with an empty drink while listening to a comic than to have a waitress loudly ask me if I'm done. But they did their best, so props to them. Not an easy job.
Smoking is probably the biggest complaint people have about this place. Do I love secondhand smoke? No. But I try to cherish moments like these as much as I can now. Someday, all pleasure will be outlawed and we will long for these days.
Live comedy is like therapy. Try at least three shows/sessions before you give up on it. Also, you gotta have a good attitude going into it. You can't make them do all the work. You gotta, ya know, laugh and shit. You gotta TRY. Make an effort. It won't kill you.
And it's a comedy club. Not Prozac. Not gonna change your life or anything.
One of the best clubs I've been to. Can't wait to go back.
We came here to see Greg Warren on Saturday night. It's in a good location with a good deal of parking, but maybe we just got lucky finding a spot. There was a parking garage nearby if the lot is full.
I had general admission tickets, so we were seated a little further away, but the room is fairly small, so there aren't bad seats - except for mine. I was right behind a support pole in the center of the room, so I was unable to see the comedians about 50% of the time.
Drink service was pretty decent considering the customer to server ratio. Overall, it was a good time. Warren was outside of the room afterwards selling signed CDs and was nice enough to pose for pictures as well. The host and supporting comedian were pretty funny as well.
My only other complaint was that I smelled like cigarette smoke when I got home. I didn't notice anyone smoking in there, but they must have been. The seating is cramped as well. Depending on where you are, you have almost no elbow room. I've been to better places, but I've also seen worse.
The acts were funny but very raunchy and vulgar. It kind of made you cringe a bit.
It was not a smoke free environment which is a disappointment. The room is small so you pretty much have zero clean oxygen to inhale.
Its a bit cramped, actually its very cramped and you become elbow buddies with the person next to you.
It was not worth the $14 ticket price.
We love good comedy and good comedy venues. Â The comedy on this night was hit and miss, and the venue was a bit less than expected. Â I didn't realize how much better KC Improv in Kansas City/Zona Rosa was until I went to Funny Bone.
With a low ceiling, and the sound system too 'big' for this small venue, it wasn't what we expected. Â The drinks were weak, the food was served in a styrofoam to go container, and the service was spotty. Â The energy was pretty low, because every time the comedian changed, there was a lull. Â Nephew Tommy was fine, as were his touring partners, but most comedy clubs keep the energy high from comedian to comedian. Â It was hard to maintain any excitement. Â Nephew Tommy is one of those comedians you appreciate or enjoy more if you follow his act regularly; there were a lot of 'inside' jokes that you didn't get if you weren't a big fan. Â That isn't good if you are still paying a premium. Keep that in mind. Â There was no smoking, and we weren't given a required purchase.
The Good: Great place to see some comedy (depending on who is there obviously)
The Bad:
I hate that they allow smoking during the show, in a small, closed up room. Also I think I was almost sitting on my neighbors lap, the seats are SOO close together. I also don't like the fact that you HAVE to buy 2 drinks after paying for a ticket and if you have a group of people (like 8) they will NOT split up the bill so you can pay separately, so they make you spend money and then will not work with you as far as paying. Their overhead cannot be that high that they can't afford to split a bill from time to time, especially if they are going to make you buy drinks.
The comics were funny and I had a great time. There are just a few things that could have been better.
They allow smoking so during the show, it's SMOKY. My throat got really scratchy from it. The other problem is there is no waiting area. If you get there a half hour or more before your show, you have to wait in the lobby of West Port. There is no bar for you to sit at while you wait to be let into the show. If you ever went to the Comedy Forum in St. Peters before it closed, they had a large bar area for you the sit in while you wait for your show. This was excellent.
I really wish the Funny Bone would do that.
It's a club, so go knowing that.  Nothing special and you're night will depend on the talent, which this night was pretty good, but I knew some of it.  The place was surprisingly full for a Sunday night and the crowd loved it all.  Waitress was right no most of the night and I think did a good job.  No food this night so can't report on that but I think it was pretty limited anyway, no chef in back for sure.  The other side has a bar you can hang out at after wards ... I would go again and I'd say try them out at least once.  You can usually catch a special ticket but if not, the $10 ticket price (this night anyway) is worth taking a chance on some good  laughs.
Review Source:This seems like kind of a "duh" statement, but how much fun you have here is going to depend a lot on how good the comics are that night. Yeah...informative, I know. :P But my experiences here have run the gamut from seeing some poor bastard bombing worse than The Situation did at the Trump roast all the way to laughing my ass and maybe a couple other body parts off at the best comedy show I've ever seen. Most of the time they have comics that are fairly established and have had some success as comedy writers and/or been on Leno or Letterman before.
The venue itself is just okay...there's a good amount of seating but prepare to be squeezed in there if it's the friday or saturday 10 pm. The price of admission is really reasonable though, and you can usually interact with the comic if you bump up to VIP seating...fun stuff! Last time I was there the comic took a young woman's cell phone from her, called her boyfriend of 8 years, and berated him for 5 minutes about how he needed to marry her or move on. :P
Major disappointment. Â They encourage you to bring all your friends out to the club so you have a chance to do open mic night and then at the last minute they pull the plug if they don't know you already or don't suck up to the head guys.
They said initially I couldn't go up because I wasn't wearing pants and then I embarrassingly switched pants with one of my guests who I convinced to come out so they would consider me for the gig.
My guest I invited reluctantly switched pants, socks, and shoes so I could have a shot at going on stage. Â When I came back in and told the head guy I switched pants he looked and said I was in the program.
Once the show started I asked the MC what number I was to go up and he said I wasn't on the list and needed to talk with someone else.
Can you imagined how embarrassed I am now? Â All eight people paid a cover charge just to walk in the door just to hear me. Â All eight people had ordered drinks while waiting for me to go on stage to hear me and I walk over with my tail between my legs to tell them, "I'm sorry you came all this way to hear me but I wasn't picked for the program tonight."
Apparently first timers that bring crowds are guaranteed to be selected according to everyone else. Not true.
From a business and ethical standpoint this is just wrong. Â They took the short term gain on taking my friends and family money and upsetted everyone in the process.
The manager said that this is show business. Â Are you kidding me? Â That is just poor business and customer service. Â Imagine if I said to all my clients, "Sorry but that is just the way it is". Â I would be out of business tomorrow.
If they would have told me I wasn't picked I would have encouraged my friends to join me elsewhere but instead paid a cover charge that was non-refundable.
The best the manager said he could do was give everyone free passes to the next show which frankly why would you come back to a place that over-promised and under-delivered?
The sad part of the whole story is that the Funny Bone used to have great service, friendly staff, and good comics. Â This wasn't my experience this visit.
Another bunk was the A/C didn't work which made it miserable to sit through the program.
I'll never come back to the Funny Bone in St. Louis Westport Plaza ever for open mic night, any other show even if Seinfeld performs here for free.
I've probably been to this place at least 20 times so it can't be all that bad... hehe Obviously it's funny, and some acts are better than others. The drinks are expensive... the two drink minimum can be frustrating for someone that doesn't drink alcohol or isn't in the mood that night... ($4-5 for a bottle of water) really?
Anyways, service is pretty good, price to get in is reasonable for the acts and all in all, it's worth checking out. The food isn't anything special but then again it's a comedy club not a restaurant. VERY SMOKEY, so if you don't smoke, prepare to do some second hand action most nights. You will definitely go home smelling horrible
Before I turned 21, the Funny Bone was the go-to place for a night out. Â You could hang with the 21+ up crowd, smoke cigarettes, and laugh your ass off at whichever Last Comic Standing reject was on stage.
These days, I can't get very excited about coming here. Â Now, the smoke bothers me, the drinks suck and are expensive, and the comics are rarely all that funny. Â Of course if you go on college night (and conveniently hold on to that college ID 2 years after you graduated) it's only a dollar, and it's not that bad. Â
But on Fridays and Saturdays it's like 20 bucks. Pfft, screw that! Â I'm not paying 20+ bucks and then another 30 on drinks to sit at a cramped table and hear some lame observations about Highway 40 and hoosiers at the zoo. Â The Funny Bone must be doing something right to be open after all this time, while other comedy clubs have an average shelf life of two and a half months. Â I have no idea why the Funny Bone is still going strong after all this time, but the college nights keep me coming back.
As far as a comedy club goes this one is pretty good. The seating is not the most comfortable, but you can see the stage pretty much anywhere you sit. They make you pay for two drinks, which I don't complain about because usually I have free tickets.
I will complain that when buying a mix drink I feel it isn't very strong, maybe a bit watered down, at least in my opinion they are. So my tip is to stick with the beer, you know they can't mess with that. You can buy your beer by the bottle, or in a bucket.
The bathrooms are outside of the club itself, and usually are pretty busy and messy.
Hopefully when you go, you see a great act, and if you aren't pleased by the end of the night, there is a club right across and above from the Funny Bone where you can keep the party going.
With the comedy talent that visits this place, it should receive 5 stars. But be prepared to get lung cancer from the second hand smoke!!! I went there not too long ago with an out of town friend and we thoroughly enjoyed the show. However, I probably shaved 10 years off my life expectancy because of the smoke. There were around 5 or 6 patrons spewing so much smoke into the room you could hardly see the stage. I wish St. Louis would get with the times and ban smoking like the rest of the nation.
Review Source:I only go here when there is a comedian I really want to see. That said, its a fun enough place but WAY TOO SMOKY with way too little ventilation. I swear I leave that place looking like Kramer did in the episode of Seinfeld where he smokes up a lifetime of cigarettes in 72 hours and his face looks like an old catcher's mitt. And the place could use a little updating. I think one comedian I saw there said it best, "I really like this place. It looks like they spent tens of dollars on it."
Review Source:Located in Westport Plaza, this is one of the best places in the St. Louis area to watch comedy.
I'll have to admit that the atmosphere isn't that great. It is extremely smoky, and you almost feel like you are transported to the late 1980s or early 90s (maybe not an era we want to revisit). Yes, this is not one of the most up-to-minute locations to visit.
But you have to forget about all that and sit back and enjoy the show. They offer everything from amateur nights to nationally known comics. You're up close and personal in this small and intimate venue.
Another positive is that it's a relatively cheap evening. Tickets usually range around five dollars, and drinks, pitchers and buckets are inexpensive. This is a great place to spend a different evening out.
My husband and I love comedy, and so we love to go to the Funny Bone. Â It's a crowded little joint with tiny tables, smoky air, mediocre beer and great talent. Â Well, they usually have great talent. Â Everyone once in awhile you have to suffer through less than good shows. Â The past few shows I went to have all been good. Â My last trip was two or three weeks ago, and it was funny, but I can't remember who we saw. Â While the environment does leave something to be desired, the people and the talent that the Funny Bone brings in always makes a visit more than worthwhile. Â We always leave laughing.
Review Source:I've been here several times, often party to some not-so-good shows, others, great performances. My favorite, though, was when the waitress dropped about 10 glass mugs of beer behind us on her way up the steps. Poor thing.
At any rate, it's your typical close quarters, very un-jazzed up comedy club. Nothing terribly flashy or exciting about it. But you hope the jazz comes from the acts, and they used to bring in big names. Not sure anymore. Before he got larger than life, they had Jeff Dunham and Peanut etc. And the hypnotist Ricky Kalmon.
The Funny Bone has all the smoky, cramped charm we've all come to expect from a comedy club, so why do I feel like it has been wholly neglected over the years?  I almost feel sad there, like I'm trapped in a dirty basement, forced to cry my way through the good or not so good comedic talent on stage.  The tears I cry are not only from laughing so hard, but also from the dilapidated atmosphere and smoke in my eyes.  Funny Bone--- I think it's time for a bit of a  facelift, don't you think?  And maybe a good ventilation system?
Review Source:
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