55 South — Restaurant in San Jose

If there were less than one star for this place, I would give it to them. A couple of weeks ago my friends and I tried to have a good time in this place someone recommended us. The bouncer "a character who is not just a cynic but an arrogant" let us in after several abusive comments to my friends and me saying that if we did not smile we could not enter. That was the first disappointment of the night because I don’t think that women should be smiling to no one just to be let into a place. If I don’t know you and don’t feel like smiling at you I don’t have to do it just because you want me to, period. However, we tried to ignore him and we got in and when we were waiting for one of my friends, who was still in line, we realized that this character "the bouncer" would not let her in because according to him, with his twelve years of experience, her ID was fake.

We asked for a manager, and this guy conferred himself the title of manager. I do not understand how to manage a site while reviewing ID's at the entrance and make racist and sexist comments at the same time. When we asked for a police officer to confirm that my friend’s ID wasn’t fake, he called his friend a police officer of San Jose, who said that the ID was not false. Neither an apology nor a sign of concern from part of the staff for the moment the bouncer made us pass, on the contrary, we were not allowed to enter because the bouncer did not feel comfortable with letting us in. We were a group of women wanting to have a good time, but in the end, we were not only disappointed but mistreated by this character with his police officer friend. Even with proof that my friend's ID was not fake, and without committing any crime, without being drunk or making any scandal, we were denied entry at the whim of this person. He did not just make my friend pass as a person able to use a false ID, but also used all his arrogance to insult us, raise his voice to us and in the end, he felt offended because we let him know that the way he was doing his job was not the right one.

I do not know who owns this place but if you read this review I hope you know how to choose and evaluate the staff you hire to serve your clients because they are the face of...

I've been here a few times and I have to say this place might be starting to grow on me. 3.5 rating but I'm bumping them to 4 because I didn't fear getting shanked or mugged in this part of DTSJ and I thought the Old Fashions I ordered here was worth coming back for.

They have a decent list of whiskies but nothing super impressive beyond Yamazaki 18 (one of my favorite go to scotches). Then again, I don't really think of this as a place to enjoy a scotch and chill because it's loud and pretty packed.

The Old Fashions here made by Mary are one of the best I've had in a long time; smooth, well blended, and with a hint of brown sugar enveloped in a subtle caramelized orange peel oil. Naturally, in the name of science, this meant I had to order 3 more to check for consistency that night. I'm not sure if it made a difference or not, but I specifically asked for Angel's Envy then later for one with Michter's (AE was better). I also ordered an OF from one of the male bartenders to see how it would hold up but it wasn't that great. However, when I gave Mary a custom recipe for my favorite cocktail punch, she made it too tangy to my liking and didn't include enough cognac.

I also tried the Moscow Mule everyone raves about here. Meh. I've had better and theirs feel rather weak and diluted. The Le Grand Negroni here wasn't good and went unfinished. Most of the cocktails here are $10 unless you ask for...

I visited this bar with 2 of my friends yesterday. We were just simply talking and sitting at our booth, when my friend got up to look around at the bar. And the next thing we know this bouncer comes and tell my friend that he needs to leave. We were so surprised but he didn’t resist and followed him outside. When we got out he didn’t even tell us what he did and just kicked him out of the bar. The other security person who was standing outside, I asked him to go inside and asked the other bouncer why he threw us out, and he lied and told him that he asked my friend to sit down and he refused. First, he never asked him to sit, he just came and said you need to go out. And Second, how is a person standing an issue? I asked the security person outside to tell me the name of the guy so that I can report him but he was also protecting him and didn’t give me his name. It was really annoying, we were asked to leave for nothing. There were other people in the bar looking and telling us on our way out that your friend didn’t even do anything. I will make sure to let all my friends know to not visit this bar. The bouncer feel like he some authority to randomly pick and throw people out...