I’m really confused about what happened last night. I have been an occasional patron of Tom Ried’s since I moved to St Paul a couple years back, and it’s always been a fun spot. Last night though, something weirdly aggressive happened and I can’t help but take it a little personally.

I invited my wife and a couple friends to come along for drinks at the bar, and on the way in we were handed funny little Jack Daniels hats and paper horns (it was new year’s eve).

We sat down at the bar, ordered a round of drinks, and blew a couple paper horn toots.

A group accross the room began responding with their own horn toots and a playful back and forth began between us. Shortly after, another group joined in accross the bar. Folk were smiling, laughing, and just generally enjoying New Year’s Eve.

Then suddenly, one of the bar staff snatched the horn from our hands and said “you’re done here”.

A security guard then approached and asked us to leave. I asked if I could finish the drink I’d bought, to which he responded by smashing the drink from my hand onto the floor and threatening to beat me up outside after his shift.

The obvious explanation for what happened, is that horn toots annoyed one of the bar tenders or another patron. But if we had known or even suspected that, we would have stopped the tooting immediately. There was no indication of this though, until suddenly we were being kicked out and threatened with violence.

A completely bizarre end to 2022. I expected a little more humanity from Tom Ried’s.