The Smiling Moose

I attended a show at The Smiling Moose last night. I never really know with shows and concerts who is responsible for the sound, the rules, basically the all around stuff that makes up the experience of what you are seeing.

For the small space, the venue wasn't bad. It reminded me a lot of Brillobox with it's dark painted walls and upstairs setup. Just wasn't as big and not really as cool since they didn't have a bar upstairs where the show was going on. Seems like a big missed opportunity. There is room for one!

My main beef with The Smiling Moose is the drinking (or lack there of). So you want to let under-agers into the show? I get it. But if we are letting the young ones in and setting up some rules, why wasn't I informed of them before purchasing a strong IPA before the show was about to start!? We went down to the bar. Upon exiting the bouncer said to my friend in a matter-of-fact-you-are-an-idiot tone, "If you are under 21 you can't re-enter." "Ummm okay, I'm not under 21", he replied. "Well then I told you that you needed a wristband." Geesh dude, there was a band playing when he came in. Calm down.

We went downstairs (ugh) and got really great beers. The bar tender had to know we were there for a show since we came down the stairs at the same time as other people and the music from upstairs had stopped. So, we buy a beer, take it upstairs and the bouncer says "You can't have beer in here" like we should have already known his rules that were posted nowhere. So we had to go downstairs and basically chug our beers to make it up for the end of the first song.

All along a band member from the first set had come down to grab a beer too. The poor (literally) band member made a comment about how he couldn't believe there weren't specials for that band, since they get that a lot. Then he heads upstairs with his beer only to be sent back down to finish it. He had bought a dogfish head with the little money he had and was also forced to drink it fast to see the band he was touring with.

Maybe this place is great to just go in and chill. But the lack of friendliness from the staff and the lame rules for the bar were a huge turnoff. I suggested they play at Brillobox when they come back into town.

Only go here for shows upstairs, but love it as a venue. Sound is a lot better than most venues of similar size. Only thing that sucks is trying to find parking.

I ate here with friends shortly after they opened their kitchen. I remember the food being awesome! But I'm writing today for one simple reason: I was at Smiling Moose for a meetup and wanted to grab a sandwich. They had plenty of vegetarian options but nothing vegan. The sandwich I wanted had cheese and an avocado mousse. The waitress was very nice and asked about the mousse for me - it contained butter. I still ordered the sandwich but without cheese or the mousse. Now, I was perfectly content with that and didn't mind that I would probably have a bit of a dry sandwich. However, the chef made me a special vegan pesto!!! It was delicious! And the sandwich was great too! I was so happy and appreciative that they went the extra mile for me! I'll definitely be back on a weeknight when they have the regular menu (it was short because it was Sunday). Friendly staff and yummy food. What else could you ask for!?