The First — Restaurant in Etterbeek

I’m surprised by how many negative reviews there are of this establishment. Traditionally, every time we stay in Belgium, we make our daily pilgrimage to have Frites and Beers. Our favorite bar has closed and we stopped into The First on a whim and we had the best experience! We were warmly greeted, had excellent service, and felt like family by the end of our few hours enjoying beers and frites. We had a larger party of 6 Americans and we felt so welcome. Other reviews have pointed out that they make you pay after each round, but we did not experience that. They do run a tab and give multiple tickets, but there was no need to pay until we were finished. I think it is important to note: this is a bar. You can bring in items from the Frites Stand, but the expectation is that you buy your drinks and not waste their valuable real estate. If you are a good patron, they treat you like family. We plan to come back...

We went to this cafe with a friend and we’re literally thrown out because after two hours if you don’t take more than one drink you are asked to leave in a very rude way. Indeed, the waiter brought us the addition and told us that we had to leave if we would not take any more drinks. There were plenty of empty seats in the cafe and it was thus not to free a spot that we had to leave but just because their politic is to do business. This is what they answered us when we told them it was very rude. They said they were there to make money and that anyway being in front of friterie Antoine they would always have clients. Thus if you are looking for a nice place to spend nice time with friends in my opinion this is maybe not to...

Ordered a variety of drinks, among which gin tonic. Apparently they charge gin and tonic separately and the gin prices were added to the bill with a pen alongside the alleged tonic prices, resulting in almost doubling it. Legend has it that we will not know why a menu item can not have a proper position in the bill.

I was asked to calculate the end sum with my phone for lack of better basic math and got jokingly hit on by the barman while being scammed (asking me to use my phone calculator is a way to my phone number; novel approach).

Combined with the fact that the cocktails & juices were also nothing to write home about, "The First" is rightfully deserving of just the first of the...