Bar + Cart Confusion

Many of you know of my love for Bar + Cart. It's no Lawless; no matter how often I m there I never seem to become a regular. But I'm there frequently; we both have Gold Cards; and I try to get people there as often as I can. We were just there with my Norwegian cousins and were super-happy to share it with them.


It's been the kind of place I also like to bring new people to for happy hour meetings, so I was super excited when, just last week on January 9, they announced a whole new happy hour menu with great prices! I posted it on my timeline and tons of people wanted to meet up for drinks. Great way to start 2025!


Today I met my friend there. I was a little surprised when, newly painted on the door it said "Social Hour 3-6,"but I thought maybe they were incentivizing showing up before 5:00. Menu prices were higher too, but they had just made another post about the happy hour earlier today, so I figured it was all good.

My friend and I were wedged into a table before a 5:30 reservation, so we quickly ordered our cocktails and an appetizer. We ordered the nachos, which again looked great on social media:


but turned out to be literally 5 chips with cheese and some small cups with tomato and guac. After about 30 minutes we managed to get our server's attention again to order flatbread. She did not clear the empty plate, refill our water, or take another drink order, but hey, it was getting busy, and getting close to that 5:30 cutoff. The small order of flatbread came over and we ate it quickly.

Another server brought our bill over, which turned out to be substantially higher than the $5 menu pricing advertised. We brought it up to our server, who indicate that there had been some problems with pricing communication lately, but who brought it back honoring the $5 pricing "this time" (I guess so much for that new menu...). To add insult to injury, they were also not following the new Minnesota fee restrictions, though I know a lot of places are struggling with these: https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Price-Transparency/PriceTransparencyLaw_FAQ.pdf

Now here's the deal. Like I said, I really like the place. I don't need cheap happy hours to get me there. I am just as happy to go at a regular time, have a nicely crafted cocktail and some whipped feta, and enjoy hanging out. It's always busy, and that sets the vibe. But I also know they can do better than they did tonight. I'm really hoping that, despite any indications to the contrary, it was just a fluke.

So meet me there sometime and we can give it another try?



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