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Restaurant News

Hey, Five Sixty, Answer Your Dang Phone and Other Aggravations

By Nancy Nichols |
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grrrI’m a lot crabby today. It started last night when I arranged to meet a colleague for drinks at The Establishment, the new craft cocktail lounge on Travis. The place opened a week or so ago and is owned by Brian Williams and Michael Martensen the boys behind Cedars Social. I arrived at 5:45PM and found the doors locked. Of course, they are too cool to put up a sign but I’d seen the picture of the entrance on Facebook so at least I was in-the-know enough to know which of the five doors into the space to knock on. Using my iPhone, I went to their Facebook page for hours.

Apparently they are too cool to list their hours. From reading older posts it looks like they randomly decided when to open:  Sometimes 5PM; sometimes 7PM. Also, the bar isn’t called The Establishment—that will be the name once they get the kitchen open. The bar/lounge is actually called Smyth. Unless you are on Facebook 24/7, you wouldn’t have a clue. I called the phone number which was answered by some space cadet at Cedars Social who couldn’t help me one bit. Strange business model if you ask me. Maybe it works in New York, but this is Dallas and I think Tristan Simon taught us a while back at Sense that private or reservations-only bars don’t work here. The ‘80s are over.

Next…

Have you ever tried to call Five Sixty? It’s a joke. You are greeted by a recording: “All hosts are currently assisting other customers.” Two minutes later, they come back and apologize for the delay and ask you to leave a message and inform you that your call will be returned within 24 hours. (I just called and listened to the message repeat itself for twelve minutes before I hung up.) There are no hosts assisting anyone.

That system didn’t work for poor Timmy last night. He has family in from out of town and they tried calling ahead to see if they could take kids to the bar. His wife emailed the “contact us” link on their website and never got a reply. After no response, they took a chance and headed over. Once the whole family piled out of the car, the valet said, “You can’t take kids to the bar, you have to be 21 or over only.” When Tim told the valet he’d been trying to call to find that out, the valet told him he can’t get them on the phone either. I actually feel sorry for Tim (it will go away soon). It’s a pain in the ass to drive someplace only to be shut out or turned away because of miscommunication. Oh, and Wolfie, it’s been over 24 hours and Mrs. Rogers is still waiting.

Got a similar aggravation? Hurl it below.

 

 

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