DrinkWell — Restaurant in Austin

On the continuum of upscale cocktail bars pretending that they aren't upscale cocktail bars, DrinkWell has passed the event horizon of forgetting why it exists and is well on its way to being sucked into the gravitational vortex of 'the customer should be grateful we have deigned to serve them' that, in any universe with pretensions toward Justice, precedes collapse.

Upon entering this 'cozy gastropub presenting eclectic plates,' the server informed us that the wait would be thirty minutes, but did so in a tone of voice that suggested thirty is a number of minutes that should deter undesirables, and with the annoyed air of someone who felt that we -- absolutely typical overeducated bourgeois white-collar Austin nobodies -- might be undesirable.

We asked whether we could park at what appeared to be tables but might have been ironically placed wheels with ceiling-to-floor poles in them, and (perhaps!) order from the bar. At this point we were demoted from Undesirable to Heretic and told in no uncertain terms that we could, in fact, stand at those 'tables' but that EVERYWHERE IS TABLE SERVICE ONLY and also that we could have NO FOOD until the aforementioned-and-rapidly-becoming-interminable thirty minutes had passed.

This was all OK with us. We ordered drinks! He brought us drinks. Maybe things will be OK after all.

My companion glanced at her drink, saw that it was the type that might should have a straw in it but had arrived straw-less, and walked over to the bar to retrieve a straw, which was in a container of the type that holds straws perhaps 2/3 of the way from the near side of the bar.

It is helpful at this point in the story to mention that she was not only no stranger to bars, but also employed to tend them and the sorts of things that go on and around them.

Moments later, the server -- let's call him Brant, which is probably not his name -- abandons serving the So Busy There's a Thirty (THIRTY!) Minute Wait Crowd and comes over to us to explain that, under no circumstances are we to ever reach behind the bar, and that if we need anything, BRANT WILL GET IT; and, perhaps, we were unfamiliar with how Bars function, so he stood there and painstakingly explained why our transgression was as severe as it was, occupying many additional seconds and a 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed' paternal scowl but also failing to illustrate exactly what the doomsday scenario might look like where patrons could help themselves to straws with reckless abandon. He did not detail what Pandora's Box we'd opened or the nature of the pandemonium we'd just allowed into what (prior to our arrival) had been the blissful sanctuary of DrinkWell but which now, sans the hermetic seal of Thou Shalt Not Pass Thy Arm Past The Centerline Of The Bar, was a cauldron of craft cocktail catastrophe.

If I hadn't have been so astonished to be adjacent to the receiving end of a lecture by the High Priest of DrinkWell on the inviolability of straws, I'd have thrown the overpriced mediocrity in my glass into his face. I regret the processing delay that robbed me of the opportunity.

+2 1/2 stars...

The food and drinks were OK but nothing special. The bummer is that the server was super man-splainy rude when I told him my drink was a little on the sweet side for me and what would he recommend instead. BTW the first was totally on me. I didn't ask him for the first recommendation, just picked what looked good and wanted to shift gears, so gave him some what I considered useful info. Now this is a cocktail bar, so this is what I'm used to doing. Obviously wouldn't do this at a dive bar. He immediately looked annoyed and said that the drink I had wasn't sweet. Um OK. I told you it was too sweet for me, so you could say AH cool try this then. He spent a LONG time telling me why the drink I ordered wasn't sweet. (It was whatever their whisky peach drink was. My friend had it as well. Honestly, one of the sweetest drinks I've had. More sweet than a traditional whisky sour. Maybe they were being made different that night.) She was looking at me with wide eyes like WTH. He asked what spirits I like and I told him really anything but vodka, particularly whisky and gin, and he proceeded to recommend a martini (I mean cool, I like gin, but it's a cocktail bar where I'm looking to try something I can't get everywhere) or some other drink on the menu that had vodka in it. (I ordered the gin martini and it was good.) My partner and friend were both like seriously why would he talk to you like that? Now maybe he was having a bad night or whatever, I still tipped him 20%. But here's the real bummer...they charge a living wage service charge of 20%. I LOVE this policy, but I didn't know they did that, because it was my first time there. They never mention it and I wouldn't think to ask. So the bill comes and I'm like wow that's more than I thought it would be, but I didn't read it carefully. Again, my bad. Since the service was pretty bad, I "only" left a 20% tip. Normally I do 25% min. Come to find out later they have that charge so he ended up with a 40-45% tip, since I tipped on the service charge. For kind of a dismissive a-hole server, it was frustrating. So I called and explained that I didn't know that was going to be on there and no one mentioned it (I didn't tell them what bad service we had) and whoever answered the phone was like cool no prob we'll take care of it. And then they didn't. I'm sure they'll still do well, it's a cute place. But I...

I went to Drink Well on a Friday evening later. We had been enjoying happy hour at Workhorse around the corner waiting for the crowds to die down before getting dinner. Around 8:45pm we walked to Drink Well. We sat at an open four top. The challenge was that there were only 3 seats (one side is a bench built into the wall the other side has stools and there was only one dinner table stool there. No problem, however, as there are two open bar stools one on the edge of the front and one on the edge of the side not being used. We pulled one over so the four of us could sit down, get some cocktails, and enjoy dinner.

Our server informs us that we can't pull a bar stool the 3 feet to our table in the completely open concept dinning area. We politely ask if we could speak to someone who has the authority to allow us to move one stool thus allowing our party of four to sit. The manager comes over and tells us that no chairs or stools can be moved. Of course one stool had already been moved from our obvious four top making it a three top. She says that she'll find a solution quickly and asks us to be patient. I suspect she's going into the back to get a stool so our party can be seated.

We wait about five minutes and she comes back with no stool and no solution. She asks, sort of impolitely, if we want to order drinks. We state that it would be impolite for three of us to be seated while the fourth person in our party has to stand while we start drinking. She proceeds to tell us in a curt tone that she told us to be patient and that she would find a solution. With that my fried who is standing has enough and we leave.

As we walked out the door the two bar stools were sitting open. Drink Well's management choose to leave seats open instead of using them to accommodate guests who were already at the restaurant prepared to order.

Net, no dinner nor drinks at Drink Well for us as we couldn't get past the nonsensical service.

I'm a regular patron of Pinthouse, Peached Tortilla, Fork & Taco, and the original anchor in the area Fonda San Miguel (all of which are tremendous in their own respective ways). When there are 20 great places for craft cocktails, local beer, and great food within a 2 mile radius why put up with nonsense of every man for himself seating and...