McGarvey's

My husband and I went dancing Saturday night for our anniversary. We had a lot of fun and the bar tender gave me a water when I was dehydrated. Defiantly a place we would go back to if we were in Manchester. No cover charge. Got right in with no hassle.   Great DJ, (thanks).  Made our anniversary fun.

I went here a couple weeks ago with a group of pals. I love this place. Not only do I like the "saloon" title but it has pool tables and a bar! My buddies grabbed some beers and we all had pool tourneys. I'm reading these reviews about karaoke? When is it? That would be awesome! I'm definitely going back! Need someone to tell me when karaoke night is or whatever and when the busiest night is? Great place.

If you sit down at the bar and are neither a regular, nor a drunk girl in a slutty outfit, you may end up sitting there for upwards of ten minutes before being served. The majority of the bartenders have a generally crap attitude, acting as though you're wasting their time after the finally get around to serving you. From my experience, those without said crap attitude generally are about as vanilla as they come. A dull, dreary look in their eye, disinterest in almost anything short of your drink order, which they may or may not get right the first time and a near inability to remember one's drink order the second time around without an empty bottle to give them a hint.

The bar itself is so-so. Clever drinking related proverbs and quotes line the walls, along with random pictures of sailboats and beer ads. And much like its slightly worse cousin Raxx down the street, it too contains small, uneven pool tables with arched cues and worn cue balls.

The crowd can be a mixed bag. Sometimes you may find an interesting stranger to drink with, other times, it feels like the sort of stand-offish vibe one might get when they see a co-worker they don't know at a community clinic.

The beer selection is standard, as are the booze. Kareoke can be entertaining, if you catch it on the right night. And in terms of silly drunks, it can pretty much be counted on that you'll see something. Sometimes it'll be a show. Either someone so silly drunk they turn into Arthur (the Dudley Moore version, not the new Russel Brand type,) OR they may just be "on" in that way where everything they say is somewhat of a chuckle. OR then again, you may just end up with the slurring halfwit from the boarding house up the street who wants to tell you a dozen or so times about how much he or she has had to drink.

Again, like almost everywhere in Manchester to booze it up, they'll get you drunk. The service will suck, you'll be surrounded by a variety of people, some who outright suck, others who may not...there are better places in town, but there are certainly worse. (Namely Raxx...)