Spirited — Restaurant in South Bend

I want to call out the bartender who did not let me take pictures of the place (Wednesday night). I read a lot about the Spirited, it was on my list of South Bend places to visit. I was not planning to visit tonight, but decided to take a look inside anyway. Just took a few steps in and immediately loved how the place looked. So I asked the bartender if I can take some pictures. I explained I was not staying tonight but definitely want to come back tomorrow. However, the bartender was not welcoming at all. He kept asking why I want to take pictures and kept telling me that if I plan to come back I should take them then. I'm not an influencer or anything, I do not take those photos for living. I'm just a 45 y.o. fat tourist with a limp who just wanted some snapshots of a place I liked... I felt so unwelcome and I thought the bartender was unnecessarily mean to me for no reason. Sorry, but I will not be coming back. I know losing one tourist customer means nothing to you guys, but I've never experienced such meanness before, and I feel I need to...

Definitely a top choice for craft cocktails in South Bend. They have a great variety of specialty drinks, ranging from $10 to $15 each. The menu is very unique and has enough options to suit every taste without being overwhelming. They also have a very nice whiskey selection.

I had a couple of different drinks and enjoyed them all. My favorite was the morgue-arita (pictured), which was essentially a margarita with activated charcoal. It was well balanced, with a light, smokey note from the charcoal.

My only note is that the tab system is a little complicated. We were there on a Saturday at 11pm when it was fairly busy. They didn’t take our cards to start a tab. Instead they put all the drinks for everyone who was standing near each other together on one tab, and we had to sort it out at the end of the night. We ended up splitting it evenly with our friends instead of trying to separate out exactly who drank what. I hope they can get that sorted out. Either way, I will definitely be back to enjoy...

Spirited is very unique to the South Bend area (I live here). It bravely opened at the start of the Covid era and was on my list to try. It was an early Friday evening and we were in need of an after dinner cocktail. We conveniently parked and upon approach of the establishment were met by an amicable gentleman in black. Turns out it was Matt, the proprietor. First impressions were 'cozy', 'speakeasy', 'tastefully mysterious' and a place we would be comfortable in. In general I'm a Martini and Bourbon guy, my wife a craft cocktail gal. The menu revealed a master mixologists portfolio of high end libations to which my wife suggested we were be returning until she'd tried them all. This place is really cool and cozy and Matt is fantastic mixologist and host who really has a gem here for great libations you can...