Ben's Tune Up — Restaurant in Asheville

VIOLENT EMPLOYEE. I visited Ben's Tune Up for the first time last night. Being New Year's Eve, the bar was packed and hard to get a drink, but all the bartenders I interacted with were friendly. My brother, his girlfriend, and I found a quiet spot to drink outside at a picnic table. At last call, we got our final drink and returned to our spot. A little while later, we were given a 10 minute warning by one of the employees. Plenty of time to finish the last half of our drinks and head out, but about 2 minutes into our time a second employee came out and told everyone to get out. My brother tried to clarify if we still had time to finish our drinks or not and the employee lost his cool. He ended up grabbing my brother's beer from him, pointing his finger in his face and telling him to "get the f* out now." When I asked the employee what his problem was he told me to "get the f* out too." I replied that I would when I finished my drink, to which he slapped the drink out of my hand. I am a 95 lb female. This man easily weighed twice that and was about 6' tall. He was in our faces, physical (slapping away drinks and two-hand pushing my brother when we were already outside of the bar), threatened to call the police on us, and told me he wished he were a female so he could beat me up. Never in my life have I seen an employee act like that or been in a situation like last night. No one in my party was drunk or obnoxious, we tipped well, and we made friends with multiple customers. This employee's behavior was irrational and frightening. It poorly reflects the rest of the Ben's Tune Up crew, as they all seemed cool. I have tried to call the bar 4 times since they opened this afternoon with no answer and no space on their machine to leave a message.

Update: employee's name is...

Ehh.. I like and dislike this place.

The good: the space itself is awesome. Indoor, outdoor, in-between, open fires outside, warm and cozy inside... summer or winter, rain or shine, this place's space has an amazing mix so you can cool off, dry off, or warm up as needed. Despite it being small, it seems to fit a ton of people. The bathrooms are generally quite clean, and if we're bar hopping I sometimes purposefully wait until we get here because I know they're fairly nice about trying to keep the ladies room clean. (I cannot speak for the men's room.) Also, this place is very Hasher friendly!

The neutral: I cannot speak for any beers they sell because I don't drink it, but I can speak for the sake.. which is alright. There isn't a big market for sake here in AVL, it's Beer city USA for a reason. Having been to Japan, I got pretty spoiled on good quality sake, so in comparison this doesn't taste that great to me... but it is a specialty item sold here in a small (and verrrry monochromatic) town and I have respect for that. It's not straight up Asian food, it's Asian-inspired food. I've never actually eaten the food so I cannot speak to it, but people seem to like it alright enough.. I can't handle paying $12 for meh ramen when I've had a Michelin star ramen bowl for under $10, but that's a personal thing and AVL is too small a town to compare to Tokyo.

There's not a whole lot to complain about with this place, it's alright overall, not my favorite joint but a nice stop along a bar...

A sake brewery! I'm far more into sake than beer, personally, so this is a pretty exciting gem.

I really like nigori (cloudy, unfiltered) sake, so their original hits the spot. It's definitely got its own character, and it isn't exactly like a "typical" nigori, but I enjoyed it.

I also had a cocktail based on their pineapple jalapeño sake. It was interesting and pleasant, quite enjoyable.

In the past I've had their wings, which were surprisingly better than expected. This time I tried both the Duck Philly and the beef stir fry.

It's frustrating. They're both good, but both were held back–the Philly by the low quality bread, the stir fry by the burnt onions. A shame, when they had so much else going for them.

The ambience is a similar problem. Some interesting features, but it falls short of what you'd really crave from a sake brewery–feels more like any other converted garage bar, mostly.

They have live music at times, which is probably cool if you're into whoever is playing. That wasn't the case once when I visited. Also, when I was there on a Friday night, it got loud enough that my voice started to go out trying to talk to my friends at our booth.

The outdoor seating is nice. The outdoor BJJ competition for charity they host ("Grapple for Good") is awesome.

Overall, one of my favorite places in Asheville. Unfortunately, has a few caveats...