Highball Bar — Restaurant in Sioux Falls Township

The 3rd time is not a charm.

The Highball is a low point for the proprietors of Carpenter Bar & The Treasury.

Where to begin?

Let's start with the drinks themselves.

I ordered the Horse's Neck & my wife ordered the Gin & Tonic - two fairly simple drinks that even dive bars get right & know how to make.

Idk if it was the poor craftsmanship of the staff (more on them in a minute) or if it is the recipe they've chosen to go with, but either way, the drinks were unbalanced, muddled & undrinkable. I'm talking bad. Like, bad bad. Both left a rancid & truly unpleasant aftertaste. After 3 sips we couldn't do it anymore - the more you tried to drink it the worse it got.

And for context, it was early in the evening, not busy and plenty of seating was still available, (we were on the outside patio) so there really was no excuse for the drinks to have tasted like they were made by 12 year olds staying up late pulling everything out of the pantry and using it all to make grog.

But I digress.

Now the staff.

The staff is in no hurry to do anything, don't seem to like one another & are not concerned with welcoming you or taking your order, but they look hip & they're def cooler than you (they're not). I really don't think they know what they're doing. Long waits to be approached. Long waits to get drinks & when we did get our undrinkable drinks, they didn't have straws. Asked for straws, waited for those also. Our server just stared slack-jawed at us when we had to ask them for straws two times, as though we were inconveniencing them and were requesting something strange.

Now onto the atmosphere & clientele.

Clearly The Highball have chosen to cater to the 60+ year old demographic. As my wife & I were sitting & waiting to order our drinks, listening to Jimmy Buffett, Cat Stevens & Billy Joel, an elderly lady began to bus her own table (way to go staff 👍🏻) by removing the glasses from her table & placing them onto our table instead..... we bit our tongues & didn't create a scene, as at that time we were still excited to try the drinks at Highball.

But rude patrons, rude staff, bad drinks & bad music turned out to be the perfect recipe for a bad evening.

We left Highball & went to Hello-Hi instead, where the staff was friendly, the drinks were balanced & served...

I went here with some girlfriends last weekend around 10 pm. The place was about 40% full with 5 staff members. After our table of 5 sat down, we waited for a server for almost 20 minutes. Eye contact was made with servers several times but not until we got up to ask for service was it reluctantly given.

Once the server listened to our orders, he made comments when someone didn't order an alcoholic drink and was extremely unpleasant. He continued to be short with us the whole night and often would take off before we had finished giving our order.

We watched several couple come in, receive no service, and then leave in frustration. Tables were left unbussed for the whole duration of our stay. Some table were cleaned off then dirty dishes put in a neighbor section.

Sad to say, but it was a distasteful experience to end our night which had been such a...

⭐☆☆☆☆ Disappointing Experience – Overcharged and Poor Service

Went out with my wife for a date night and ended up disappointed. The atmosphere was nice, but the service was slow—we sat for a long time before anyone even approached us. I had to go to the bar myself to order drinks.

I asked the bartender with long hair how much an Old Fashioned with Blanton’s was—he clearly told me $18. I ordered it, plus two more later. When the bill came, I was charged $18 each plus an additional $24. When I asked about it, he said that’s “just because it’s an Old Fashioned,” which made no sense. I specifically asked the price before ordering. He apologized and said he’d fix it, but nothing was removed.

This isn’t how you run a business. Misleading customers and hoping they won’t notice the charges is not acceptable. I won’t be...