Bar Broadway — Restaurant in Great Britain

Quickly popped into this place last night and politely asked the chap behind the bar if my friend and I could use their toilet as we desperately needed to pee. He explained that only paying customers could use the toilet so I asked for a cheap drink. Another member of staff then approached my friend and I, and said that they wouldn't serve us and told us to leave.

We were both extremely confused by all of this! I can understand an establishment only allowing paying customers to use the facilities, but refusing someone a drink for no reason? We were both pretty shocked. Maybe if my friend and I had been drunk and/or rude then of course their reaction would've been totally fair, but we were sober, polite and docile. They were unnecessarily aggressive, which sadly put a bit of a downer on what had previously been a really awesome evening.

I would expect this kind of rude treatment from a place in London, but not Brighton! So if you fancy hanging out in a bar where the staff will quite happily treat you like the scum of the earth for no apparent reason, look no further!

Avoid the crap out of this place, everyone.

Part 2 - in response to the owner's post below:

Hello and thanks for your response. I was more than happy to purchase a drink and was in the middle of getting my wallet out of my bag when a member of staff told me I wasn't allowed to buy a drink. And with regards to the rest of my evening, I am disturbed by the fact that you took a very keen interest in what myself and my friends did after leaving your bar and am quite frankly very perturbed by this. And for the information of anyone else who reads this review, there were more than just the four of us and none of us were drinking. It's actually kind of reassuring to know that the owner wasn't stalking us through their bar window because everything they've written below is a load of lies!

As I've already said above, avoid this place...

I am incredible disappointed with this bar. The first time I went it was lovely and the appeal is evident as let's face it who doesn't love a good sing along to musicals. However, last night I took 2 friends there as they also appreciate musicals as much as I do but we were treated absolutely appallingly. As we entered we could see it was busy but there was space on the left hand side of the bar so we tried to squeeze through the crowd, much to the displeasure of the patrons who refused to move or even acknowledge our existence. Then when we got to the place we wanted to be one of my friends tried to use the bathroom and was refused as they hadn't bought a drink yet. I mean that is kind of fair enough, still in my eyes a violation of human rights but I get it and we were planning on staying for the rest of the evening so we were going to buy drinks obviously so we were like that's fine we will get drinks first. We hadn't even been in the place more than 5 minutes before a guy came up to us and told us to buy a drink or leave. Like seriously give a girl a chance to decide what she wants to drink, there is no need at all to be so pushy. It was said in such a way that we all got very angry like how dare you come up to us and say that within such a short amount of time. The reason we even bothered to go to the left hand side was so that we could get access to the bar. This kind of behaviour should not be acceptable from someone I'm assuming was staff (because otherwise it wouldn't make sense) and you are meant to invite people in not tell them to leave for absolutely no reason. I could understand if we had caused disruption but we hadn't we just wanted a good musical filled night. Safe to say we left because we did not want to give our money to people that treated us...

We visited Bar Broadway for a midweek cabaret show that had been promoted on Eventbrite. What started off as a nice time with some good music then spiraled into one of the worst bar experiences I've ever had.

The show for the evening involved a performance by a drag queen. My friends at the table were Asian WoC and the whole schtick was the drag queen making fun of their names and how difficult it was to pronounce them, and commented on their accents. Unsurprisingly, jokes about the other (white) customers, myself included, were not about our names. She briefly mentioned feeling bad about making these kind of jokes (and that they might be offensive) as if this was a cop out from any accountability and still continued making them, despite of how uncomfortable everyone was at our table. We ended up leaving during the performance.

I have been to several drag shows in the past and I understand lighthearted ribbing and jokes are all part of the show and that's what makes them entertaining. What isn't funny however is when a white performer abuses this power to be utterly callous towards their audience.

I am aware that the bar cannot control what exactly their performers say. However, hosting an event by itself should guarantee the patrons some semblance of safety and respect within the premises. It’s not a big ask from a customer to have a safe space where jokes aren’t racist.

This experience is a shame as it has blighted what was otherwise a very pleasant trip to Brighton, as I've found the rest of the city very liberal and welcoming in its attitudes towards gay women...