Fern Bar — Restaurant in Kansas City

I visited this bar on a Sunday night. I’m pretty new to the world of liquor and cocktails, and this bar was recommended to me by the bartender at the hotel at which I was staying, so I was excited to check it out. My girlfriend and I had four drinks, and two of them were excellent (the Still No Pickles and the Freddie Got Floored), while the other two were good but didn’t blow my mind. Great ambiance. The cocktail menus were very fun and well-designed, I thought, though my girlfriend found them a little hard to read.

The only negative part of our experience was the service. I was about to order a drink that used pisco as a base. I had only tried one bottle of pisco, though I really liked it, so I wanted to know what kind of pisco was being used as a base, just to build my familiarity with it. “What kind of pisco are you using for this drink?” I asked the bartender.

“Pisco … pisco … oh, you mean, p-ee-sco.”

Pisco is a South American brandy, so I realized that he must have been pronouncing it correctly. I said, “Oh, is that how it’s pronounced? I didn’t realize that. I’m very new to all of this. In fact, I just learned how Cynar is pronounced.” (I pronounced it sh-ī-nar)

The bartender looked at me and said, “It’s pronounced ch-ī-nar.” Then he walked away.

I’m very glad that I now know how to pronounce pisco and Cynar—honestly, I had only read those words before that night, and I’m well-aware that the actual pronunciation of words can be hard to figure out when you’ve only read them—and I really respect this bartender for knowing his stuff; he really seemed very knowledgable. But boy howdy—whoever that bartender was, he really has a thing or two to learn about hospitality and good service. I hope that my experience was not representative of the other bartenders at this establishment, but if it was, then don’t expect kind or friendly service, because apparently you...

Love the place every time I’ve been. Take all my people there multiple times.

Went there for my besties birthday this Friday. Met up with them after I got off work. We were at the table by the bar. There were only 4 of them there the whole night until I arrived. Had food and a couple rounds of drinks. They asked if the bar offered specials for birthdays, the server said yes and brought shots. Shortly after, we asked for the split tabs and we were charged for the shots she offered and also had added gratuity. There is nowhere inside the bar or on the menu that stated it’s a policy. When I asked the server why they did that, she stated they do it for parties of 6. I told her I had arrived at the end but still, there were only 5 of us. She said her coworker had added it. Then offered to take it off. I still gave her the 20% tip in cash and told her that was my intention but it didn’t make sense what she was saying, my problem was the principal of the fact that it was automatically added when we had no business having it. No one else at the table had mentioned anything so I told her to leave it. I spent $75 after all.

No one made a scene. Everyone was dressed appropriately. No one acted belligerent. I typically help my friends out of an establishment if that were ever a case.

When we left, my friends checked in on me and said they also had it added but felt shy to ask why.

I didn’t understand any of that situation but it felt like we were being treated differently for who knows...

Reminder for new guests: It's absurd that this bar, with 90% of its seats empty, tries to act like it's in high demands. The seating policy is like a joke when the bar is empty and not allow you to seat. For better cocktails and service, try Drastic Measures or Swordfish Tom's—they were much better overall! ——————- Drinks are good, got a mocktail I really like. The odd thing is there are 90% empty seats, as we come in around 4:00pm ish, without reservation we were told to only seat at the bar, otherwise, wait after 7:00pm. So we sit at the bar, which is ok as they act like if we didn’t reserve, so that’s the only option. After the bar seats are nearly full, there were more unreserved guests walk in, and sit at the table without question. A bit unfair, isn’t it? Which doesn’t make sense to me: as a pregnant woman, it’s uncomfortable at the bar seats, and see all the empty tables around, just being empty the whole time. When I question the waiter, he was gaslighting as sitting at the bar is my option, and it is my misunderstanding of his words why we end up sit uncomfortable. Wow, sorry dude, gaslighting strategy doesn’t work for me. Well, the whole thing is not a big deal; gaslighting a pregnant woman is not a good idea. Especially there are 90% empty seats claimed as reserved, but nobody show up the whole time, to put a pregnant woman at the...