D.I.X. Milwaukee — Restaurant in Milwaukee

On Friday 2/21/2020, my party of about 20 people and I went to this establishment to celebrate a birthday. Before this night, my girlfriend and I have been to DIX numerous times, and it had been our favorite LGBTQ+ bar/club to go to when we wanted to go out. We felt safe and accepted. We never had any issues in the past. A lot of the people in our party had never been to DIX, and we were excited to show them how fun it was. On this Friday night, my party and I arrived approximately around 10pm-10:30pm. Because it was still early and it was a Friday night, it wasn’t as busy as compared to a Saturday night. We decided to locate to the back dance room and stay there, where we were constantly at the bar buying drinks. The first drink my girlfriend asked to buy was beer, and the bartender stated he didn’t have any at his bar. So fine, she decided to buy shots. My girlfriend and her sister bought so many drinks that night, and everytime we bought drinks, we tipped the bartender. Granted I’m sure there could have been 1-2 times he didn’t receive a tip, probably because he was rude and unfriendly to begin with. When my cousin went to buy a drink, he stated that the bartender was rude and inattentive. 3 people from my party offered to buy the bartender a shot and he refused all 3 times, but they witnessed him taking shots from other people, which was fine also, because we aren’t going to force someone to drink if they don’t want to, it’s just odd for him to refuse ours but accept others. On another occasion I also witnessed him giving away a free drink. And like I said, I can care less what he does, but all I ask is to just be treated the same way as other paying customers. Altogether, my party spent well over $300. The last time my girlfriend and her sister went to bar and ordered a drink, the bartender told them that he was “done serving us for the night because we were not tipping him and if we wanted drinks we would have to go to the other bar.” He had the audacity to say this to us, when we tipped him every time we ordered a drink, even when he didn’t deserve a damn tip. My girlfriend tipped him $10 on one order, and my sister tipped him $2 everytime she ordered a drink. I was appalled and livid. What ensued after that was an argument between us, him, the bouncer and whoever else. The bouncer told us to leave the first time, but she let us slide and let us stay because she knew we were right. She saw us there the whole time and saw how many times we went and ordered drinks. We practically were posted at the bar. The second time the bartender kept talking and looking at me, I didn’t hold my tongue, so the bouncer then came and told us to leave again. I was livid and I demanded to talk to the owner. I demanded them to pull up all the receipts of what we spent and how many tips the bartender made off of us that night, and this wasn’t even including the people that had spent cash at the bar! Too bad cash has no paper trail so we can’t see how much tips he made in cash compared to card transactions right? Since the bartender claimed that we didn’t tip him, I demanded all our tip money that we DID give him back! The bouncer told me if I wanted to talk to the owner I would have to come back at 4 the next day. She had no regard for my concerns, and even shoved my sister. Eventually a man named Tyler came and said he was a manager and talked to us. He was the only person who was willing to talk nicely to us and listen to us. He told us he apologized for what happened and that we shouldn’t have been treated that way. We left after that and took our business to La Cage/LVLs. When we left it was about 1:30am. My party and I were there for about 3 hours and spent so much money just to be treated with disrespect and discrimination and accusations. I was upset, angry, and hurt. My girlfriend and I loved DIX, but now we will not be returning and neither will our ppl. Being LGBTQ+, we would love to support our own kind, but sadly we can’t even do that. I would rather take my business to La Cage/LVLs from now on, or go...

Went there with wife and friends on St. Patrick's Day. I dropped the wife off at the door and went to park. Walked in and still waited almost 10 minutes for a drink. One bartender was on the other side of the bar when I walked in and told him I was surprised my wife hasn't gotten served yet. Not knowing he was actually a bartender. He walked past me behind the bar and talked to other people. The bartender came back then waited on 3 of his friends that just walked in after me. Then he waited on us, we bought a shirt, 2 shots, 2 drinks and paid in cash. He set my money down at the bar in front of me and within a couple of minutes it was gone assuming his poor service was a tip. Then I asked him what happened to my money and he told me he took it because it was a tip. I told him I never touched that money or made a motion to give it to him and he kicked me out. Completely 100% disrespectful given the fact that was the first bar we went to. My wife runs her companies LBGTA group and we are very active allies. But that bar manager was that most disrespectful bartender i have ever met. And he tried taking my beer away from me because I was complaining about his service. Horrid horrid...

Was in the night of NYE. I really enjoyed myself, however I had a very unpleasant experience with the DJ that night. I asked him to play a song I'm sure he could've played without issue and I'm sure he made out which song I mentioned. About an hour later I realized never heard it so I asked him again to play "Feels" by Calvin Harris this time with a tip in hand when him and the other 3 individuals that entertained him gave me very cold and snobby and degrading looks causing me to walk off and let it go. I understand how things go in club's I'm not young or new to club scenes but everyone doesn't want to hear the same kind of music all evening and I found it very unprofessional the way he conducted himself in that instant and I'm not normally one to complain. Hopefully in the future no one else or myself for that matter has this experience again as everyone's anticipations are good music drinks...