Spats Berkeley — Restaurant in Berkeley

I would like to start off by saying I am in the restaurant business. So giving a really negative review is hard for me. I recently went to spats and the whole experience was horrible. There were about ten people there so it wasn't busy. But it took about ten minutes for the bartender to stop talking to his co-worker and acknowledge me. Then he walked past me to another customer that already had a drink and offered him another. Then he finally came to take my order. He was nice enough. But you could tell he was ready to end his shift. I ordered some food as well. The ambiance is nice enough so no complaints there. But when I got my food.....it was horrible. I had the rib tips and rib combo with potato salad and corn bread. I was excited. Who doesn't like BBQ. It was terrible. I seriously couldn't eat it. I'm not sure what flavor profile they were going for but you could tell either they just don't care when they make it or they have no real experience cooking. A new bartender started her shift and after I patiently waited for her to finish texting I asked her for a box. She said I had to go get one from the kitchen. So I did. Another bartender took my empty burboun glass and didn't think I might possibly want another round, which of course I did. It felt like it was a place with no management and a young under trained staff. Like someone bought the place and just let all their friends run it with no experience. I would...

Recently Revived Berkeley Bar Spats kept the name of once famous bar that had been closed for a number of years. Cleaned up and slightly remodeled to bring it into modern times, the bar's decore does hold onto some of the quirky elements that once graced it's walls in years past.

I met some friends for a light dinner and drinks on a Monday. Although consisting of three interconnected rooms, the place still was quite empty although it was Monday.

The food was good and service pretty attentive. We had the Lamb Sliders, regular fries (they offer regular and sweet potato) and what seems to be their signature Totchos (tater tot nachos) which were plentiful and filling.

Over all the experience was good. The food was good, they have about 8 beers on tap and a more bottle and can options along with mixed drinks.

The one takeaway from it all is that the price point was too high for what you got. $12 for an order of 2 sliders was a bit much especially when other bars int he area offer the same for less.

Although a good bar, I would suggest going elsewhere to get the same for less or better for the same price.

Hopefully things will turn around for them and I can give a update after another...

I’m having a hard time articulating exactly how dumb this interaction was.

This guy was clearly an hour late given that he was setting up an hour after they were supposed to be open and there wasn’t even anyone behind the bar for the first five minutes or so.

We went there to watch a game and we were the only people in the bar for about half an hour. Eventually somebody else walked in and sat near us and asked to put on a different game. The bartender literally just changed the TV I was looking at and told me I could move to a different room if I wanted to see the game I was watching.

I told him to close me out instead and he proceeded to just do other stuff for like ten minutes and then eventually got around to asking me if I wanted another drink.

I don’t really hold high standards with my customer service interactions at dive bars, but that was the most inattentive and disrespectful one I’ve had in a while. I’m hoping everyone was just still hungover from the Cal Stanford game.

Also, they literally had one champagne glass. That was...