The Whisk(e)y — Restaurant in Fort Collins

First lets compare Fort Collins to NYC because in NYC it is 5-6 times more expensive to lease business space for a Bar restaurant

Tonys charges $4 for a cheese slice

At “99 Cent Fresh Pizza” which is a business name of a place downtown NYC you can get a cheese slice for $1.

At Joes Pizza downtown NYC a slice of Cheese is $3.

There is no mystery to this. Its called price gouging. I was the Kitchen manager at Tonys for a few years. When i started the owners claimed someone was “stealing” $45,000 a year. Turns out, the missing money was tied to BAD ORDERING AND BOOK KEEPING IE INVENTORY which they never did. They used a long time food purveyor who had been jacking the costs of goods to the moon and never sought to switch companies. Because 30yrs prior the original owner had a bad experience with Sysco.

The prices could be better but they do the copycat thing that everyone in town does and price match other businesses instead of trying to gain a regular crowd that comes for the better food and cheaper prices. In 2018 after i switched them to US food the cost to make pizza was so much lower that even $2 was feasible for a price of cheese and left plenty of room for profit considering it was near $1 to make a whole pizza.

Like a basket of fries from the window is $8 and a side of fries at the Whiskey is $6. Again, in downtown NYC where lease rent is 5x as much has sides of fries for $5.

When i first took over as kitchen manager i asked the bar managers for both the Whiskey and Tonys how much they charged for sides of sauces like ranch which they would ring back by the dozens nightly. Neither side was charging for sides of sauce. Literally giving away profits. So free sauce but a $1.30 in cost basket of fries is $8? How does that make sense?

In my short time there not only did i vastly improve the menu by taking off high cost items that were being sold for less than the per plate cost of the item like calamari, which cost $14 a plate to buy but they sold it for $12 on the menu. But i also dramatically lowered the cost of things like the cost of goods to make the pizza by getting cheaper products that were better than the high price “buffalo milk mozzarella “ which wasnt even as good but cost 3x the price to buy.

What places like this and other places in town are not realizing is that VOLUME is whats important when making food sales, lower the profit margins per plate, and have people come back 7 days a week to keep buying food they actually like.

A great example was i took the calamari off the menu and was able to source YELLOW FIN TUNA for 1/3 the price and had sashimi tuna and a fresh Ahi Tuna salad on the menu, between both items i would sell a whole case of tuna on friday and a whole case on Saturday. Before that, 1 case of calamari would sit for weeks in the freezer that would go bad and eventually go in the trash. It was told to me by the Gm of the whiskey that they kept buying it for their customers yet we would sell 1 or 2 orders a night.

no place in this town has to charge as high of prices that they do if they ran the business trying to collect a regular crowd and used lower profit margins to do so. Even the bar managers werent doing bar inventory properly and had grouped up liquors that had all different prices.

I left that job after having a bad fall and was treated like absolute trash by Tavo the Gm of the whiskey at the time and his whole staff who all thought i made more money than them when i was barely making $26,000 after taxes. Most of them made double or more.

The pictures i provided are

-Fresh grilled Ahi Tuned salad with edamame, shredded carrots and Honey Lime Sriracha dressing -Easter Lamb preparation for the Church of with Tony and his family -Blueberry Breading pudding with Irish Creme whipped topping , walnut streusel and maple syrup

People came there for my food when i was Chef. Now its just another bar with over...

I feel very conflicted about writing this review, since I've had great experiences at The Whisk(e)y over the years. Until recently. I came here a few weeks ago with some friends and left feeling uncomfortable after several bizarre interactions with one of the servers. Our first server, Malik, was absolutely fantastic and he took excellent care of our table. Five stars for Malik. However, halfway through the evening our table was passed over to a new sever, Sam. It was clear right away that Sam was... a little off. We watched him taking shots behind the bar and it's possible that he was intoxicated. My friends and I were in the middle of a conversation when Sam pulled up a chair, sat down at our table, and interrupted us to give some truly abysmal whiskey recommendations. My friends and I are well-versed in whiskey, and one of the women present is a bartender at a whiskey bar. The whiskeys he suggested were bottom shelf and probably the worst choices available on the entire menu. We told him we weren't interested and we placed our order. He came back with a bottom shelf whiskey and insisted that we try it anyway. His entire demeanor was intrusive and presumptuous. Our party was all women, and he seemed to be operating under the impression that we therefore must not know anything about whiskey. He also interrupted us a few times to start small talk conversations, which was frustrating considering my friends and I hadn't seen each other in a long time, and the whole purpose of the evening was to catch up. We tried to politely disengage, but he did not seem to pick up on our social cues.

When he wasn't lingering around our table, he was engaging with a drunk woman at the bar. I'm sure they were friends, but she did jokingly yell at him to stop when he came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. The entire evening was off-putting and I will definitely hesitate to come back in the future.

Edit: Making this review 1 star since the management still have not...

The Whisk(e)y is an awesome place for a drink and some food! Obviously, they cater to the whiskey drinker, but they have great food and other drinks as well. I know they've got to be up there in the sheer number of different whiskies, and it's awesome to go and try them. They have great flights, and generally knowledgeable bar staff for recommendations. The space is really comfortable, even if it's a bit small feeling when it's crowded. The live music in the back is also really nice.

They periodically have distillers come through and offer tastings as well! I just went to a High West tasting with a friend of mine, and it was very cool! And it was free!

Definitely a place to go in Old Town for a few nice drinks or if you've got a hankering to taste a whiskey and don't want to buy a bottle, this is the place!

Update 12JAN19--Unfortunately, I've dropped my rating to 3 stars from the 5 I had rated The Whiskey two years ago. The above information is still relevant, with the included details that the paid tastings they periodically offer are often excellent, and good value for the information that you learn and the whiskey you get to taste.

However, the past few times we've been,the table service is horrible. Service at the bar can be good depending on the bartender, but if you're sitting at a table the odds are good that you'll be waiting for an extended period of time for anything. For example, we recently tried to eat there but sat down, got some water and a menu for food and drink, and then proceeded to sit there for 25 minutes as our server ate behind the bar, chatted with other people, and walked right by us multiple times without asking or noticing that we were still there. We eventually left without eating and were unnoticed in leaving. It's unfortunate that this seems to be a trend lately when we've gone there, because the food and drink and selection and atmosphere are all excellent, but the service tends to be...