Bask46 — Restaurant in Woodland Park

I only go to sports bars once in a blue moon - usually for one March Madness game a year and a special, rare occasion like a Mets World Series game. Prior to the pandemic, my chum and I often went to 381 Main for those events. It wasn't the best in terms of food and overall quality, but it ultimately did what it was supposed to do, which is provide a decent sports viewing experience. It's really a shame they closed because their sibling Bask Bar & Grill is a significant step down.

The layout is just not comfortable - it's super narrow so it feels weird to try to roam around in just one little room (381 Main was probably twice the size if not more, and that's not even counting their larger patio/outdoor area), and I don't see a way that that can be fixed even by gutting some of the interior. It's just a small space in a mini strip mall that wasn't meant for a bar. Along with what you'd expect in a sports bar (some generic sports shizzle on the wall), the surfboard theme from 381 Main is here as well. I don't know that they necessarily complement each other, but I can't imagine anyone caring too much either way.

What really rubbed me the wrong way about this place was how they handled the kitchen. Both of us had skipped dinner with the intention of eating some bar food while we watched the game. Earlier in the day, we had gone online to research a 381 Main alternative and focused a great deal on the menu items of a few candidates. One of the main reasons we picked Bask was because the apps looked really good. When we got there to order, the bartender told us the kitchen was almost completely shut down and that we could only order a plain pizza - not even a pizza with meat on it or anything, just plain. That was really frustrating, especially because we had already checked Bask's website and social media pages and there weren't any references to the kitchen closing time, just a notation that they were open every day until 2am. To add insult to injury, we watched for the next 45 minutes as other peoples' apparently previously ordered food came out, so the kitchen WAS technically open. It just came off as disingenuous and disorganized. We settled for the plain pizza, which was okay (the crispy crust was the high point), but not what we wanted. If we had known the kitchen was pretty much closed, we wouldn't have come here, bottom line. It would have taken someone two minutes to update a website or Instagram/Facebook page with that information.

Another area where Bask doesn't match up to 381 Main is the drinks. I'm not the type of person who has a go-to cocktail order, so I usually rely on a cocktail menu if that's the direction I'm going in. The cocktail menu at 381 Main was pretty standard, with items like sangria, margaritas, etc., but this place didn't have a basic cocktail menu. (I'm sure most of the target audience for this bar doesn't care about this at all, so your mileage may vary.) On the fly, I asked for an Aperol spritz, which the bartender said they didn't have all the ingredients for, but that he could make something similar. Okay, fair enough. The drink was okay. Not particularly spritzy and it had a very faint cough syrup aftertaste but it honestly could have been worse.

The service was, again, okay. It didn't take too long to hail down the bartender for orders, but he never stopped by to follow up on drinks/food unless we motioned for him to come by. It's a sports bar so I don't think you should expect to be waited on hand and foot but there were definitely moments where he was just standing around and could have used that time to check in since it wasn't that crowded for most of the night. I probably would have ended up ordering an additional drink if he had been more proactive so that's money left on the table for them.

I'm sure it's possible to have a fine time here and there's an argument to be made that this just wasn't our scene - it was a crowd of mostly guys in their late 20s, early 30s. But I'll be looking for a different place to watch...

I love Bask, and miss 381. I couldn't wait to try this out. The manager has always been nice. My partner, and I entered and was seated right away. Mind you the staff is VERY young and they look like they don't have much experience at all. The host was going to seat us very and I mean VERY close to another table. We declined and was seated a table down. The menus were on white copy paper typed up. It was very overwhelming (a QR code would of been better) We arrived at 7:05 PM and didn't see anyone until 7:28PM. The table next to us was being served but not our table. We also noticed a female manager talking to a table for a very long time, nor did she come over to ask if we needed anything or a server was seen. This was his wife. After wondering what was going on and lack of communication, My partner finally got up and track down someone. Ten minutes later we finally got silverware and a waitress. The waitress Brianna came up with a huff and a puff, and didn't even say sorry for the wait. Brianna took our order which was a margarita, world tour, tacos, and grilled cheese. The food runner put the food down, and didn't even say ,"Did you need anything else?", as the waitress came back ten minutes later. The margaritas tasted water down, the world tour which were dips didn't taste good at all (the spinach dip was puree that someone put under a heat lamp for one minute as it came out ice cold)-My partner said the tacos were good, and my grilled cheese was good also (for $18 it should be good) I didn't even want to eat anymore due to the drinks lacking (no drink menu-as the host went to go look for one)and the half n hour wait for a waitress. I know that this place is still on a trial but Im sure it will be sort out in no time. So, for two people we spent $75 (which is...

During the pandemic we were supporting local businesses about twice a week by ordering out and during that time Bask was heavily “promoting” itself on Facebook. Besides the owner posting a lot there were many other people displaying their food in pictures with lots of praises. Seemed odd and almost felt like there was something it it for them. I digress. We ordered food my family of four and my initial feel was it was more expensive ($60+ for bar takeout food) then our normally takeout but that would be okay if it could live up to the hype on Facebook. Well it did not. I got the rich mans cheese streak which when I asked to remove the mushrooms I was told it was premixed. I should have taken that as a sign and ordered something different. The bourbon sauce took over the whole sandwich so I could not taste the garlic bread, cheese, or even few onions and peppers. Thankfully lacking toppings meant only four small pieces of mushroom to pick out. Gyro my husband said tasted like the ones on the boardwalk which I don’t think is very flattering. Kids chicken finders (appetizer) were fine for them but overpriced for the couple they got and no fries. We have them our fries and ordered the Montreal fries which mentioned cheese cuds which is not something we can ever find around here. We go to Montreal every year for poutine and this year were not able to go because of the situation. For $8 what we got were disco fries as instead of cheese curds it was just mozzarella. Thankfully we were not asked to give our review on Facebook and will not be ordering again. Lots more local business to give...